Aictos
Established Member
- Joined
- 28 Apr 2009
- Messages
- 10,403
Well I finally managed used Eurostar yesterday on my jaunt to Belgium with memories for life, managed to fully soak up the Belgian experience although I just wished I was spending the weekend instead.
Arrived into Brussels and decided to head to Bruges to spend some time there, one of the memories was travelling on a double decker train (bearing in mind I've never used Rail anywhere in Europe before, this was a culture shock).
Heading for a bite to eat, it was either Subway or a local cafe - no prizes for where I went, yes it was a local cafe which served me a delicious waffle with ice cream, whipped cream and lots of chocolate source with a locally brewed beer
Moving on, I decided to do some sightseeing which accumulated in a boat tour on the canals, of course I didn't forget to pick up two local beers to enjoy at Christmas.
Heading back to Brussels, on the next train it was so refreshing to see that not only were seats lined up to the windows and bins provided under every window but also had the luxury of blinds like the UK Class 390s have.
A look around the market was followed by tea at a local cafe, where I soon discovered that my interpretation of the menu was very different to the locals hock:
Expecting a few mussels and quite a lot of frites, it was a shock to see I actually ordered a large sourcepan of freshly cooked mussels and a small helping of frites - at this time I was fairly hungry so down the hatch they all went with only about 3 or 4 mussels left which is good going.
I then decided to do use the Metro seeing different parts of it before getting a tram direct to the station to board the Eurostar - needless to say I boarded the tram heading in the wrong direction but luckily only had about 5 minutes to wait for the correct tram!
It was so enjoyable, I certainly have no hesitation in making a return trip in 2012.
The only question I had about Eurostar was they don't seem to have any power points in Standard Class, will Eurostar being putting them in?
Arrived into Brussels and decided to head to Bruges to spend some time there, one of the memories was travelling on a double decker train (bearing in mind I've never used Rail anywhere in Europe before, this was a culture shock).
Heading for a bite to eat, it was either Subway or a local cafe - no prizes for where I went, yes it was a local cafe which served me a delicious waffle with ice cream, whipped cream and lots of chocolate source with a locally brewed beer
Moving on, I decided to do some sightseeing which accumulated in a boat tour on the canals, of course I didn't forget to pick up two local beers to enjoy at Christmas.
Heading back to Brussels, on the next train it was so refreshing to see that not only were seats lined up to the windows and bins provided under every window but also had the luxury of blinds like the UK Class 390s have.
A look around the market was followed by tea at a local cafe, where I soon discovered that my interpretation of the menu was very different to the locals hock:
Expecting a few mussels and quite a lot of frites, it was a shock to see I actually ordered a large sourcepan of freshly cooked mussels and a small helping of frites - at this time I was fairly hungry so down the hatch they all went with only about 3 or 4 mussels left which is good going.
I then decided to do use the Metro seeing different parts of it before getting a tram direct to the station to board the Eurostar - needless to say I boarded the tram heading in the wrong direction but luckily only had about 5 minutes to wait for the correct tram!
It was so enjoyable, I certainly have no hesitation in making a return trip in 2012.
The only question I had about Eurostar was they don't seem to have any power points in Standard Class, will Eurostar being putting them in?