Ghent; Monday, 23 December, 2013

I checked out of the hotel and had a bit of a wander around Ghent, but it was soon pretty obvious that the combination of it being a Monday, and the day before Christmas Eve had ensured that the only place open was the castle, and as I’d done that the previous day it felt like a bit of waste to money to go back again.

Instead, after having had a morning coffee overlooking a deserted boat cruise landing stage I headed back to the hotel, picked up my bags and headed back into Brussels.

The other consideration as I sat on the train heading back to the capital was the massive storm that was heading straight for the Low Countries. It was already smashing into Southern England and was causing major travel disruption, so it made more sense to be close to the Eurostar terminal, just in case they suddenly decided to start cancelling services.

Having arrived in Brussels I dropped my bags in the left luggage office and caught the tram out to Heysal to have a look around Mini-Europe. When I’d last visited in 2004 it was shortly before the major EU expansion and so much of the site was under construction as they attempted to put in buildings for the 10 new member states.

Since then another three countries had joined, including Croatia just a few months before so I went to have a look around a slightly less mini Mini-Europe.

After taking in the avidly pro-EU propaganda of the site I caught a tram back into the city centre to have a look around, including visiting the Christmas Market by the Grand Place before it was time to head back to the Eurostar terminal and check-in.

Despite the weather savaging train services across the South East of England the Eurostar service ran perfectly to time throughout, so I arrived in St Pancras in time to catch a train towards home that should have arrived nearly an hour earlier.