Best Western Flanders Lodge Ypres

We set off from Paris after picking up our C5 Tourer comfort car from Citroen delivery centre at Porte St Cloud in the 16th arrondissement after a small taxi fare of 27 Euros for the privilege.The people at the centre were extremely friendly after a few challenging days whilst staying in Paris. The manager showed me the vehicle so I could load t...

Everyone's been telling me to write an entry, and I really want to but I can't find a caffe with internet in this town. It is too tiny! I'll have to wait to write a proper entry once I get to Antwerp or Bruxells. For now, I'm in Brugge and staying with a very nice software developer who is very talkative despite his thick Flemish accent. It's ha...

We went to Ypres on the suggestion of my dad. Ypres is located in Flanders and was a central battle ground during WWI. The town of Ypres seemed to be right in the midst of the fight and was almost completely destroyed in bombings and fires. It is also in this area that the battles of Pashchendale took place. It was one of the most deadly and gre...

The first stop of the day was at a cemetery for the French. It is without a doubt the largest cemetery I have ever seen. In the centre of it is a large church (Basilica?) called Notre Dame de Lorette. I believe there are 22,000 French soldiers buried here. The French grave markers are almost entirely shaped as crosses (although there are random ...

In the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium, you will find a little place called Ypres. When I first stepped out of the train station in Ypres, my first thought was "Oh no! They're speaking Dutch! I forgot to review my basic phrases in Dutch!" After taking a deep breath and reminding myself that it’s probably fine, my next thought was “...

the dutch spell brugge but the french spell bruges. so what does the english language use? bruges! i find that kind of weird. shouldn't we take the spelling of the locals? we're so silly.

this medieval town (subject of a wonderful movie staring colin farrel) is a bit (as the movie suggests) like purgatory. it's such a comfortable city wit...

Today we headed just down the road to the town of Ypres, which is pronounced Eepra or if you are British, Wipers. If you have ever read any of the history of WWI you will know this is where the Western front was situated. The front formed an arc from the coast near Calais all the way down to the Swiss border and was the site of many of the casua...

As we prepare to depart Ypre on one of the tiny, run-down local trains, we are truly sorry to be leaving after an eye-opening and emotional visit to this beautiful little town with its bloody and violent history. It turned out to be unnecessarily difficult to get here from nearby Caen, and involved a tram, a train to Paris, two metros, a train t...

One of the reasons I stayed in this hostel was that it advertised a free breakfast. I was not disappointed. It wasn't really a hot breakfast, but there was toast, drinks, some kind of sugary bread, and sandwich food. Sandwich food meant I made a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch. I really don't spend much on food. I've found that a sandwich for ...

The train service in Europe is really fantastic. I'd say they are smoother than riding in an airplane. You can barely feel that you are moving. All of the engines are electric too, even on the freight trains. Some have two levels, but ours was only a single level. There is of course, first class and second class, but I can't tell much of a d...