Easter Holidays Part 7: Brussels to Ingleton

Healthy breakfast

So an OK night's sleep, we got up at 8 and then walked to The Grand Place, hoping to find breakfast on the way.  We didn't but we followed a sign to Manneken Pis was we knew where that was in the relation to the Grand Place and there we found a waffle shop open, so we all had a waffle each for breakfast: one with Nutella on it for Tom, one with strawberry syrup on it for Matt and one with bananas and melted chocolate for me.  We were all very happy with our choices.

As we were eating our waffles, the Manneken Pis was getting an outfit for the day - a middle aged man was on top of a ladder with a bag of clothes which he put on him - took him a good 15 minutes to sort him out.  Not 100% sure what he was dressed as - but it was to commemorate 125 years of something.

We then went chocolate shopping - the shops in Brussels sell chocolates at reasonable prices, so we took advantage - put it this way, we won't be needing to buy birthday pressies / gifts for dinner etc for a while now.

Next stop was a bakery for Matt to have his morning coffee (otherwise he gets grumpy!) and then Carrefour for some more shopping: cheese and beer.  We then got the tram back to the hotel and packed up our goodies and had a bit of downtime before heading across the road to the station.

Manneken Pis, all dressed up

First job was to buy lunch for the train.  Tom went for sushi, Matt for a pasta pot and I went for a salad and a bread roll so I could make a salad sandwich.  Then through check in and security - much more civilised than in London, nice and calm.  Question: why do you have to go through security and passport control when going from Brussels to London but you don't when going from Brussels to Germany?  Why have we always had different rules to the rest of Europe?


The Eurostar back to London was uneventful: on time, fast and comfortable.  We arrived to sunshine in London and happily walked the back way to London Euston and got the Pendolino back to Lancaster - once again without any hiccups and the sun was shining in Lancaster. Hurray.  However, our train to Wennington left 15 mins before we arrived and the next one wasn't for another 2.5 hours. We decided to see how much a taxi would cost, if it was under £20 we would go for it, it was £21, we went for it.  Our car was patiently waiting for us so we hoped in and returned home.  It was nice not to have to wait 2.5 hours!

Architectural bling, Brussels style

As it was so nice, as we arrived, we headed out to the Wheatsheaf for a last pint.  Tom made some friends in the garden and played hide and seek, which was great.  Then back home for a cupboard tea and early to bed.

A great holiday, think we will do something similar again next year...