April 16 – Brussels, Belgium. A day on our own in Brussels. When we went down to breakfast one of our Tour Leaders, Kari, was sitting in the lobby waiting for her ride to the airport. The Tauck cruise was excellent. The food was great, the room was small (but not smaller than other river cruise boats) but very comfortable, the included tours were well thought out and the guides were excellent. It's hard to imagine having a better time on a river cruise.
After breakfast I brought the things we wanted to ship down to the front desk and they arranged to have the box picked up. We headed to that great tradition the Hop-on-Hop-Off bus. I have to admit that we rarely hop off. We just take the circle route all the way back. In Brussels they have two different routes so when we finished with one; we got on the other one. Each was about an hour and a half and they give you a great overview of the city.
It was an interesting day. The unexpected surprise for me was the extent to which the European Union occupies Brussels. They have huge buildings and all in one place. It's like a separate little enclave. One building I found especially significant. It's called the EEAS, European External Action Service. Sounds a bit like a military organization or spy service. It was the only building that I saw in the EU area with fully outfitted military guards around the building, camo fatigues, armored vests and FN automatic rifles. Maybe they guard all the buildings but the others are not in session right now. I just thought it was a provocative name. It's apparently a semi-autonomous organization with its own budget.
It was a low key day after a cruise full of very busy days.
April 17 – Brussels, Belgium thru the Chunnel to London, England. Our train departs Brussels Midi at 10:56 and we have to be there 30 minutes early. When you take the Chunnel train you clear immigration for both countries in the station before you board the train and, with security, that can take some time.
Tauck had arranged for a car to the train station at 9:10am and he was right on time. It was not a long trip and it was a flashback when we had to drag our own luggage into the train station. Security comes first so I had to lift our luggage onto the x-ray machine. Fortunately they have a slanted roller affair so you don't have to lift them up to the x-ray level. You tip them onto the rollers and push them up. A very nice touch.
After clearing security you see the Belgium immigration. Then they stamp your passport and sent you on to the next stop. Actually because we came into Belgium on the Swiss Jewel after arriving in Rotterdam on the ms Rotterdam our entry stamp into Belgium was missing. The inspector asked us how we got to Belgium. I didn't think he wanted the whole 125 day story so I simply said we arrived in the EU through Rotterdam, Netherlands. We boarded the Swiss Jewel in Amsterdam and upon disembarking the Swiss Jewel in Maastricht, Netherlands we rode to Brussels on a bus. He looked through our passports a bit longer and then smiled as he said I see you've been traveling. We agreed that we had and he stamped our passports and we moved alone.
It was a simple matter at the UK immigration because we had a very recent exit stamp from Belgium. They asked how long we would be staying, I said 3 weeks, they asked where and I listed the cities where we had hotel reservations. He seemed happy enough with that and stamped us into the UK. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the train to open for boarding, getting our luggage and us on the train and taking the 2 hour ride to London. I talked to someone who was going to London by air from Brussels and counting taxis, the flight, picking up luggage and taxi again it took him almost twice as long to make the trip.
When we got to Saint Pancras station in London we had to lug our luggage (now I get it) to the parking structure where the car rental agency was located. We picked up our and a Sat Nav (GPS in the US) and headed out to Canterbury.
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