Belgium | Chaos roaming the world

After a good night’s sleep, where the temperature dropped to surprisingly low 14 degrees, we were the first ones to get up at the campground. Everything was covered in fog. Our new neighbours on the pasture were hard to spot but their young ones had breakfast at the barn and they delighted our kids.

The calfs get some good hearty vegetarian breakfast too (small bugs not counted)

Even after breakfast, we were the only ones moving around the campground so we tried and failed to get the kids to be quiet. I feel like this is going to be a thing on this trip, especially with the Agent of Entropy. Either she’s going to be asleep, or she will get out as many words as she possibly can. Given that her repertoire is limited…that means a lot of repetitions.

Though we took a bit of time, we hit the road nice and early. Arrival at the Atomium in Brussels was 11am, but we hadn’t booked anything, not for the restaurant or even going up the tower. All the people there plus the queues convinced us to put “Belgium” on the list for a shorter holiday some time else and just look at the Atomium from the outside today.

it will take you more than a few moments to realise that he is not actually looking at any part of the structure

An overpriced grilled sandwich later, we explored the nearby park a little bit while walking back to the car. So far, we’re still in the pre-planned, getting-to-Ireland stage of the holiday and don’t have as much leisure as we’d usually have. Another 2 hour drive was looming for the afternoon to get us as close as possible to Calais as we’d booked the le shuttle through the eurotunnel for tomorrow morning, our best shot to get through the channel quickly.

Number 3 fell asleep in the car but since the Agent had already slept in the morning, she was wide awake and sang “Happy birthday” for about a 100 times.

Shortly after 3pm, we stopped at a cozy little bakery. Flo had googled a nice place for us to get coffee time treats as well as bread and a quick up-and-go breakfast for tomorrow morning. We all opted for pain au chocolate which will still be delicious, even a day old.

The campground this night is called “al la plage” and while I can’t see the beach from here, Flo and the kids have gone to explore how close you can get to the sea.

An hour later, they came back. Dinner was made from things we brought from home and we progressed into the evening routine.

The last thing of our trip dawned on us: Drive to the Netherlands and visit dear friends of ours for a couple of days before returning to Frankfurt in one go. Thus, today was a driving day. We wanted to get from North-east France through Belgium and into the Netherlands.

The sat nav told us that it’s about 400km which is 50km more than we did on long driving days so far. Better to get going then!

Despite the grey, low hanging clouds, we managed to pack everything dry. We had another hour to go in France which left plenty of opportunity to stop at one more Intermarché and buy some more pain au chocolat. In a combined effort we even got Number 3 to stay awake until we reached the supermarket so he could roam around before passing out in the car. So far, so good.

We made good progress until Number 3 woke up and it was about lunch time anyway so we stopped at a motorway rest. Having our own bread-and-cheese lunch felt slightly odd but it was definitely tastier than the McDonald’s option of the rest stop.

Things started to go slightly wrong from here. Back on the road, the ring road around Antwerp, we were instantly in the first traffic jam. What had been an 8 minute delay because of roadworks before we stopped for lunch was now a full blown jam, probably with an extra accident thrown in just for fun. It took f.o.r.e.v.e.r. For the next 45 minutes, we drove maybe 15 kilometers. The sat nav found other ways for us, off the motorway, but these started to clog up quickly as well and they also had roadworks. Baby was not amused with the whole situation and started screaming on top of all the other stress we already experienced.

Finally, finally, we were through this blockage and back on the road. However, Belgium had two more traffic jams for us and the Netherlands one small one. If you are wondering, why we were in so many of them…yes, traffic around the big cities is usually bad. However, we chose the Friday before a long weekend for our longest driving day so really, we should have known better.

Instead of arriving around 4pm, we met our friends at 5.30pm, dead tired and stressed out. Things got a lot better from here on out. We spent most of the evening at out friends’ flat, meeting their little boy (to be known as Mini van Bartang) and just generally catching up and eating pizza. Back at the camp site, we set up in record time and were in bed by 9pm.

There was a storm warning for this part of the Netherlands for the evening and night. Just in case, we left it to the tent and storm cover, planning to set up full camp tomorrow.