The good, the bad and the ugly

Let's start with the good. Leaving our Brussels apartment after 6 days and it was literally downhill to the station, which was a nice start to the day. We had foregone a visit to Ghent earlier in the week, to do it as a quick day trip on the way to Lille. Bags dropped at a café for storage and we were on our way. 

There were people everywhere in cafés and restaurants and looking at the sights and taking selfies on bridges. Apparently I made a deal that today would be both waffles and fries day.

Waffles for morning tea were good and they had a toilet.

Then we did more wandering to see castles and churches and street art,

and it was lunch time. Frites Etelier had served us well before so this time would be good.

And it was and they had a toilet.

There was also a wedding party that we followed across a bridge. Annette wanted photos of the bride's clothes, as well as one of the guests in stilettos trying to walk on the cobblestones just over the bridge. Bride's left leg is on the right of the bridge, and stilettos in goldish dress up front and left.

Back of the bride:

The Bad

We walked back to the station, checked the indicator board and got on a train that headed in the direction of Lille, was labelled as going to Lille, and then went elsewhere. When we finally realised, we had found ourselves in places unknown.

A train back in the right direction was over 30 minutes, we changed trains and finally arrived at Lille Flanders station. We quickly made our way in the designated 7 minutes onto our next connection. We were on this train standing and waiting for over half an hour before somebody told us the train was cancelled. We changed trains and waited seated for over half an hour. Nothing. With Sandrine and Pierre (they were picking us up) getting constant bad news, we bailed on the train that was going nowhere, booked an Uber and arrived in Carnin (outskirts of Lille in the French countryside).

The Ugly

4 hours later than planned.

On a positive note, nobody in any of the many trains checked our tickets so we have an extra day to use on our Eurail pass.

Sandrine and Pierre are Claire's parents. She is married to our son Jeremy. Just in case you didn't know. 

We had a lovely, very late dinner,(being light after 10pm assists with eating outside) marvelled at the garden, in particular 2 small brick buildings that I can see Annette replicating in retirement, 

made friends with the cats,

and absolutely crashed.

Isn't travel fun.