Day 3 (Tue 4 Sep)

Another day devoted to travel.  To cover the vagaries of aircraft time-tabling and inevitable delay, international airlines may use the convenient cloak of security to demand that passengers report to the airport three hours before flight time.  Thus, reveille for us was 04:00 (yes, there are two four o’clocks!).  Departure process was smooth and trouble-free but, for reasons similar to us having to take a train from the arrivals gate to passport control when we arrived, we had to take a bus from passport clearance to the boarding place, which this time was a remote, windswept tract of open tarmac at the end of line-up of what seemed like hundreds of large aircraft, all at some stage of the process of preparing to board.  Ours was loading from the ground via the moveable steps.  Inevitably, we took off almost an hour behind schedule.  The 7+ hour flightthat followed, although made as comfortable as possible by the aircrew, was still a long way.

On arrival at Brussels, the Belgian incoming process was slow (for all non-European passport holders) but hassle-free, as was our transfer to Brussels Midi railway station.

Our first experience of continental rail travel had its moments as we proceeded from a major station (the one single branch off the London-Paris express) via a Eurail main line station at Ghent, through a change to a narrower gauge to the second last station on a very rural branch line.  We had to contend with the older Continental style of low (or no) platforms and our first attempt to board, each with our own luggage, was a bit of a disaster, causing us to revert to plan A (Doug lifting the cases aboard). The state of excitement was heightened by the most officious official we have ever struck (outside of the Army Provost Corps) who stung us an extra €18 for leaving out two numerals from the hand-written entry that is supposed to be inserted in the Eurail Pass when validating.  The journey was mercifully over once we had arrived at Ieper railway station and taken the short 300m walk to our accommodation.

We had managed to find a flat above a shop about 250m from the town square (see photo) in this very attractive medieval town which had to be rebuilt stone by stone after the Great War ended in 1918.  The interior had been extensively re-modelled by Hendrick, its owner, who is an interior designer and who was there to escort us over the threshold.  After a detailed briefing, washed down with cold beer and hot coffee, we eventually collapsed into bed having attained our goal for the day.