Dunkerque

We had our trip to Dunkerque, costing 7.40 Euros to catch Kusttram from Oostende to De Panne station and from there we caught the bus into France. We passed many pretty villages along the way, and the weather was generally reasonable - at least we saw no rain in France.

Dunkerque is best known for WW2, when the small boats came to collect Allied soldiers from its beach.

Here are some photos of the town:

Boat in Dunkerque.

Paddlesteamer in Dunkerque.

Lightship at the Maritime Museum in Dunkerque.

Tall ship at the Dunkerque Museum.

Tower in Dunkerque.

I think the tower in the photo was part of a castle, or a fortress, but I'm not 100% sure of that.

We liked Dunkerque, though we didn't see alot of it. Next time (for we will definitely go again) we hope the Maritime Museum will be open, and we would like to see the beach area.

Click here to visit the official site of Dunkerque, and here for the tourist site in English.

Holidays 2008

We have just booked the first part of our annual Christmas get away to Belgium. Normally we would not consider any other transport but the plane, but this time we plumped for the ferry, and we leave Hull on 23rd December on the "Pride of Bruges". We arrive in Zeebrugge the following morning and then we get a bus into Brugge (easier than getting from the ferry terminal to Dorp station!) We leave on 28th December and arrive in Hull on 29th December. It saves the hassle of overnight hotel stops because we can get trains or a bus straight from Hull to Scarborough.

Our main holiday will be in four weeks - we go down to Derby on 31st August and then fly from East Midlands to Brussels on 1st September with bmi. I like bmi, we flew on them last year on an ERJ135 - the smallest airliner I've been on, the Fokker 50 is a wide body in comparison! This time the aircraft is to be an ERJ145, the bigger cousin of the 135. We have 10 days in Oostende, and hope to have a trip to Dunkerque in France as well, we can get a cheap day ticket from Oostende on the Kust Tram and then the bus.

I'll also get to see my beloved Zeebrugge (at sunrise and sunset in December!) a few times this year.