Leonardo Hotel Charleroi City

We arrived in Brussels and got ourselves to our hotel and dumped our bags so we could start our day in the city and see the 5th biggest Cathedral in the world! Haha. And whatever else Brussels had to offer us, not to mention the food, chips, chocolate, waffles and beer!! We had a great day walking about and being amazed with how much Belgium loved us. Haha. Then after our day was done, we headed back to the hotel, had a well deserved ...

... everything they could cobble together at the Germans to try to stop the advance. In Belleau Wood, at the start of June the Germans met newly arrived American troops from the 2nd [Marine] Division and elements of the 7th IR of the 3rd Division, who stopped them, and then gradually pushed them back. This came at a crucial time since after four years of the horrible trench warfare and astronomical losses; French and British morale ...

... dinner until fairly late. We sampled a mild Belgian beer (Belgium is the true beer country in Europe - with a much greater variety of brews and choices that Germany for example). Some of the Belgian beers have very high alcohol content, the same as some wines! We had a mild one with dinner and a stronger one just before retiring - between the short night and the strong beer we should sleep very well.

... and all in the space of a three and half hour drive. I had a 2 hour visit with some members for whom I served as pastor for 5 years in the 1980s and 90s. We had lost touch and it was very good to see them again and revisit old times and get caught up on events of the last 15 years or so. We talked about the hard days of 1993-4 when our church was going through so much upheaval. Our children are now grown; time flies. After that very positive visit, I turned back to ...

... It could be out of an Ikea catalogue. Quite strikingly, there are a lot of women on their own having their lunch here. It's weird. Rarely do you see a woman in a café, pub, or anywhere "out" on her own, in Bristol. If there is something that really grates me about life in England - it is that. We are basically a nation of male chauvinists. Our society - as I experience it in Bristol - doesn't allow ...

... all over all the souvenir shops and such. So at this one corner, crowded around this very uninteresting statue, is a whole swarm of people at any given time, all taking pictures of it. Some guidebook must have told these people to come look at it. Either way, it made for some good additions to my "tourists are weird" collection of pictures. The next day I went to a car museum showroom type thing, lots of old cars. And ...

... a crazy rally driver in the middle of the night. I reached home late, slept and the next day I decided that I couldnt anyway take it to loose everything and head back to Charleroi to pay a high penalty of 60 euros to finally get able to manage a seat on the plane of that evening. It was nevermind the money just go change your idea and I kicked away all this bad memory away and started freshly with a smile when I landed in Skavsta.

... through the red light district, there's actually prostitutes in windows here just standing around in their undies. yikes. i guess *******s start at 70 cdn dollars, which is pretty cheap right? really i have no idea. i guess the ugly ones hae to charge less? but anyway, went with andrew and got a brownie on the way to the sex show. and while eating a brownie is legal in "coffee" shops, it is not legal to walk around with it. so we had to run ...

After 3 days in Brugge, having walked to every corner of the town, we decided to move somewhere else. So, to be able to use our return train ticket, we went back to Charleroi. Charleroi was not this great place as tourist offices says. Compared to Brugge, it's bigger and much more modern, more dirty and less safe: it's an ordinary city. We stayed at Hotel Buisset, an ...

... accident we found Rue des Bouchers. This is the street packed with restaurants selling lobster, crab, mussels, any type of seafood. We saw the changing of the Guard at the Palais Royale and wandered around the antiques area. By this stage I was feeling disgusting after to much chocolate truffles and fries.... So what do we do, find a pub! Not a big night as we had an early start.