Who could believe that a three hour twenty minute train journey could take seven hours and the one hour car trip following could take a further four hours? The seats were booked by the travel agent but the problem was Scenic insisted everyone should be off the boat by 9.00 am and booked us a taxi for a 5 minute walk to the Amsterdam Central Station - so we sat on the platform and waited for our 11.16 am train. An Australian couple who had been on the APT boat that was docked next to us began a conversation and we ended up parting like old friends at Lille at 4.30 pm when they discovered their Hertz rental car was to be picked up from a different one of the three Lille train stations to the one where we arrived. Fortunately ours was OK.
Thank goodness we found each other because our rather trying day was much better shared - and Elaine and I had company each time the poor boys went off to try and find out what was happening. We were better able to cope when our connecting train at Antwerp sailed by without stopping – finally after walking several kilometers seeking help this news was imparted with no thought or sign of regret. The next train was not due for one hour!
Google had told me it was 75 klm and one hour from Lille to Bollerzeele but they forgot to mention the hideous traffic and lack of signs to navigate us out of a busy industrial city – finally we escaped via a tollway to Dunkirk but we never discovered any toll points. Our beautiful old hotel in the lovely little village is very elegant and the welcome we received on our arrival after 8.00 pm partly made up for the lack of both lunch and dinner. Our hosts made us coffee with petit fours and as a couple of these tantalizingly small delicacies were tiny meringues, Alan was able to eat them without guilt.
Feeling pretty pleased about the quality of our hotels so far but I suppose there are sure to be a couple of duds at least - I am wondering about the next one.
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