Well, we should have been travelling on the Eurostar to Bruges with neighbours, to celebrate us turning 40 and them 50, rather than to hide out after a contract killing, but that all went a bit wrong, didn’t it. Here’s as close as we got:

The travel agent was initially useless, as was the insurance company- this will become the subject of a future rant- but the short story was we didn’t go. This meant a quick decision was required, and accomodation had to be found.

We ended up in York. It’s not in Belgium, clearly, even though there’s some evidence of Belgian influence:

As things turned out, it was all very nice: York is quite affluent, but not up itself. The shops are a bit different, the building historic (mostly, and the pubs are not bad either in the most part- pubblog will tell all. We thought our bad luck was to continue when the Lexus’ electronics (Mike was chauffeur) had a sulk at the petrol sation when we’d got as far as Derby, but they soon recovered, and then there was an uneventful journey. Our luck seemed to turn: We did some sightseeing, eating and drinking (pictures in the Gallery).

York was full of other tourists, even in February half-term- We skipped the Viking centre, due to queues (advice here is to pre-book), but managed the Minster, Castle Museum, Railway Museum, and Nuclear Bunker, plus a Ghost Hunt.

We had thought of Hardwick Hall on the way back, but the snow put paid to that….