We loved our little detour to Belgium and stayed with Kirb's cuz Paul and his family Chrystelle, Lucas and Estelle. Paul greeted us at the train station with a bottle of champagne and the party (or shall I say the consumption of some very fine beers) continued until we left.....it actually kept going well into France as Paul stocked our bags (lucky for the extra suitcase we had to buy) with some fine take aways.

Paul gave us the grand tour of Brussels the first afternoon, including old palaces, gardens, churches, cool eat streets, the town square and some street art, and topped off the afternoon with some fine local beers - those monks know what they are doing!

We stayed at their beautiful house in Cinney. On our first night we stayed in and they treated us to a huge dinner of meats, cheeses, and veggies that you cook yourself on a grill plate at the table, kind of like a BBQ version of the fondue. I want to get one when I get home.

Paul and Chrystelle drove us to an area in northern France which was one of the major WW1 war fronts. We saw destroyed villages, mass burial sites, memorials, forts, bunkers and the ground is still covered in craters from all the bombings. Being there and seeing the actual destruction still eveident, its still hard to comprehend what these people went through. Another culinary experience to add to the list that evening was the amazing pot of moulles (mussels) we each had (make sure to look at the bowls of shells in our photos, that was only half)....

The next morning Paul and the kids, and Kirb and I went on a 24km kayak trip down a river through the Belgian countryside. It was a fun trip full of amazing scenery and even included some small rapids, slides down weirs and of course the obligatory beers. We had an awesome day and the kids did great paddling most of the 24km on their own!

We then walked around the beautiful town of Dinant before heading heading home for dinner and jumping on the train to southern France. We had our first major hiccup and experienced the joy of sleeping in a train station in Brussels after missing the last train to Paris, it was gunna happen at some stage!