Nine o’clock and our coach was waiting to take us to Halle which is where our cruise should have ended if it hadn’t been for the terrible accident at La Louvière where a motorway bridge collapsed on a boat. At Halle 5 of us left the bus and caught the train to Brussels Midi, the Eurostar terminal. The rest stayed on the coach to Brussels and we bumped into some of them at the station. As our Eurostar train didn’t leave until the afternoon I enquired about transferring to an earlier one, no problem, just an extra £230, so we went for a walk and a few coffees followed by a lovely Mussel lunch. The clouds reflecting in the glass clad buildings had to be photographed. Needless to say like most of the other trains this week, Eurostar was also late getting in from Holland
Back in London we made our way to the Buckingham Palace Best Western Hotel where we had a room for the night. A lovely place in every respect except one. Our room backed onto the railway line. That evening we ate at one of our favourite restaurants in the area,Cyprus Mangal. Due to the road works the road running in front of the restaurant is closed so they have set their tables out all over it. Great for the warm weather. We felt we were still on holiday.
Next day after a very disturbed night after breakfast we checked out leaving our bags and visited Buckingham Palace, with all the thousands of tourists and took a
walk through St James's Park before catching our coach home and guess what, it was an hour late leaving Victoria. In 12 days we had just two trains on time.
Here is a map of our cruse. The red is what we did, the green what we couldn’t do and black is train travel
It was a little before nine when we set off heading to the Strépy Thieu Boat Lift about half a mile away . Moored below the lift were two trip boats that take visitors for a ride up the lift, but it was too early in the day for them to start trading.
The right hand caisson was open ready for us to enter . Once in, the double guillotine gates closed behind us. The lifting cables that take the weight of the caisson are set out in banks down either side each with its own load gauge and adjustment.
It wasn’t long before the machinery started to sing and we were on our way up, the movement almost impossible to detect other than watching the world get bigger
When we reached the top the double guillotine gates ahead of us opened and when the green light came on we were free to leave, out along the channel to join the canal some 240 feet higher than when we entered.
Once we were back on the main canal we turned round, it was at this point that one of our large deck umbrellas decided it was a glider and flew off into the canal where it slowly sank out of sight below the surface. We re-entered the lift in the same caisson to descend back down to the lower level. The round trip took just on one and a quarter hours.
Once out of the lift at the lower level passing under the very drippy gate we returned to the spot where we had moored last night, there we turned round and entered the small lock to rise up the the basin below the old lift . This lock is the size that Raymonde and the others in the fleet was designed to fit, so there was just millimetres of clearance each side and very little space at the end.
Our deck man had to climb the vertical ladder with the mooring line to reach the bollard and then continually adjust the tension as we came up to keep the boat in position. Smaller boats can use the bollards built into the ladders so they don’t need to climb up, but I doubt they would be man enough to hold us.Once clear of the lock we moored in the no mooring area, reserved for boats using the lift
This was the end of our time cruising and Raymond would remain on these moorings until the next lot of passengers arrived, But our holiday was not complete. After lunch we had an afternoon trip to Brussels which included a visit to a chocolate making shop with a demonstration of chocolate making. The chocolatier was a very entertaining Chinese man in black who picked one of us to “assist”, this was the chap in the white apron .
Brussels has some interesting architecture with its modern buildings in the midst of the old town.
Our guide lead us around the city including a visit to The National Basilica of the Sacred Heart where a wedding was taking place.
The wedding taking place during our visit
We also visited a building dedicated to strip cartoons
Passing one of the better hotels the doorman didn’t look real standing stock still. There was a building with cycles hanging all over it and another where the external walls are in a steel splint
I took a video from the centre of the square showing all these buildings surrounding it.
We also saw many other fine buildings including the opera house
In addition to this we walked many of the streets and arcades seeing not only the peeing boy but also the peeing girl and a shop where you could buy cannabis beer.
Again we are seeing this great love they have of murals with these three buildings.
We made our way back to Raymonde passing the Parc du Cinquantenaire of French design with French gardens. Back at the boat it was our last night so our gala dinner
As its the end of the cruise I will add some photos of the food we had onboard. It was first class.
