A huge thank you to Jojo and his family for the last day and a bit. I was up at 7am to grab my things and get to the station. Destination Charleroi, then on to the airport from there.

Marina’s flight had landed even earlier than its rescheduled time indicated so she was there when I arrived. This was handy as it meant she could jump onto the bus I arrived on for the return trip rather than us waiting for the next one. From Charleroi we trained up to Brussels North then looked for our hotel.

At one point we ended up on a street lined with shops displaying very risque-ly dressed mannequins which looked so real they could almost pass for real women. Especially the really old one at the end of the street. I wonder what they were selling as there was nothing else in the windows.

The hostel “2GO4” turned out to be really good. They checked us in early and we used the free interbet before walking ten minutes into the centre of Brussels for some lunch and sightseeing. Brussels has some beautiful buildings, the grandest of which is definitely the town hall – even grander than the palace in my opinion.

We of course saw the Mannike Pis, and the more recent addition a few streets away, the Jeanneke Pis – his “sister”. This is outside the Delerium Bar, world record holding retailer of 2004 different beers! We sampled a paltry four between us and headed back to the hostel.

Tomorrow would involve a fair bit of travel so we had a light dinner, more beer, watched the superb Bad Santa on telly and crashed out.