Our last day in Belgium. Had talked the day before about whether we would leave early and spend the day in Ghent on the way back to Brussels – however the thought of sleeping in and having a more relaxed day won out. Had breakfast and then packed and left the hotel about 1100 (checkout time). Decided to do the small boat trip on the canals before it rained. It was very pretty – started to rain halfway thru but stopped quickly otherwise we would have been very wet.Then went to buy our things which we had been saving up. I agreed to meet the others an hour later and I didthe long walk to the suitcase shop as we were going to fill it with beer and chocolates. However didn’t bargain on Easter Monday with everything being shut – the suitcase shop was the only large shop open apart from souvenir places – but they had sold the one I wanted so didn’t buy anything. Met Andrew and Nancy outside Neuhaus – the bestest chocolate shop which was also closed. It as a bit difficult to tell if it might open at 1330 so I waited around whilst the others went off to buy their beer. Fortunately it did open and I got these amazing coffee chocolates – 1.60euros each – 5 for Andrew and 10 for me. Expensive but worth it.
Then back to the hotel and walked to the bus stop with our belongings to go to the train station to get to Brussels. The train was pretty full. Once we got to Brussels we caught a taxi to Hotel Aristote as Nancy had left her pyjamas behind the bathroom door – picked those up and then went to the restaurant for dinner that we had gone to the first night. This time we had no lunch and were ready. I ordered exactly the same thing but wasn’t quite as good as the first time. Back to the station to see the queue for the Eurostar snaking out the main doors. Decided quickly to pop to the supermarket for supplies also hoping the wueue would be smaller by the time we got back but it wasn’t. The good thing was that we already had seat numbers. The train was packed and my next door neighbor barely said hello this time which suited me. Back to London and then home by 2030 having had a lovely Easter.