Thanks Steve. Belgium is massively under-rated, it is truly a superb place to visit. We went in September and had hot weather apart from when we went to Eupen when it rained. The beer is sensational and the food is great. We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant on Christmas Day – Cantonese rice table and it was really nice. Then on Boxing Day I had rack of lamb and my Mum had ostrich. The food was all top notch stuff!

That Sloeber beer looks good. Can you get it over here in the u.k ?

It’s very difficult to find over here SOFTLAD, but last year a friend of mine asked at a beer shop in York who had connections with the Beer Ritz warehouse, and they were able to import some. That might be your best bet – ask at a specialised beer shop and they might be able to help you. Ordinary beer shops never seem to sell it.

http://www.beerritz.co.uk/ might be able to help but they are not taking orders until early in 2007 due to huge demand.

Lights with the church in the background.

The Markt on Christmas Eve. It was very quiet.

Stalls at the other market.

The love of my life – the best beer in the world! Sloeber in the limelight with Leffe Vieille Cuvee in the background. Taken in the best pub in Brugge.

Views from our hotel room.

We will be back in Brugge next Christmas 😀 😀

The chip stall. These chips were to die for!

The Christmas beer – Stille Nacht.

View from our hotel window.

A drinks stall at one of the Christmas markets.

The hot drinks stall where we used to buy our drinks. My Mum is just getting her jenever coffee and my hot chocolate.

The ice skating rink on Brugge Markt.

Sorry about your problems, but an interesting report, so B.A. don’t mind you taking photos on board?:D

They didn’t seem to mind, the steward saw me taking the photos of the moving map and he didn’t say anything. I’ve never had problems taking photos on a plane, at any stage of the flight. I didn’t know there was any rule against it?

We climbed through cloud.

Inside the A319.

Turning on course.

We were offered the choice of a chicken tikka wrap of a veggie wrap. We chose chicken tikka and orange juice. It was very nice.

Wrap.

Crossing into Belgium!

The Captain told us it would be misty in BRU. We intended to go straight to Brugge rather than eat at the airport. We did not know what would be happening later!

Info from the moving map:

19,000 feet altitude
420mph ground speed
-24C
159 miles from BRU.

As we descended to BRU we encountered slight turbulence before touching down at 14:46. It was a good landing and we taxied to the B terminal.

Beside us we saw a Brussels Airlines-painted 737.

Brussels Airlines 737. Cheap and tacky looking, bloody hideous.

We went to baggage reclaim. Hardly any baggage came off flight BA394. Our baggage had failed to arrive, and many others from the flight were in the same boat. We went to the claims area and queued. When we were finally seen, we were told that one bag was at LHR and would be on the flight BA398 which landed at 6pm. The other was missing. We were not happy at BA, I won’t repeat some of our comments.

We had to wait for a few hours which delayed us getting to Brugge. We had a pizza slice at Pizza Hut and then my Mum went to go back into the baggage hall to wait for the flight.

I waited among those who were meeting relatives as my Mum came through with our one case. The flight bag had not arrived, some on the flight received no luggage at all. It was a very bad situation, we could not replace the stuff we had lost because it was Christmas.

I don’t know what the other people thought about our angry comments about BA but maybe we can always hope they did not understand English swearing!