I went to sleep last night whilst the football was still on, so I got a head start on Jezza – until about 01:00 when the nightly ritual of rubbing his back and trying to turn him over onto his side began 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️.
The alarm went off at 06:45 and we made our way down to the pool for our last swim 🥲🥲. I swam 54 lengths- it was more than yesterday and I wanted to do even more, but I was conscious of the time as we had to have breakfast and pack up our worldly belongings, before heading for the airport at 11:30.
The changing room signs in the pool/wellness area were very misleading as both signs looked like women – see pic below – I kept going into the men’s locker rooms 🤣🤣. Jezza called me a pervert 😂.
I spent an age trying to dry our swimwear and shower puff with the hairdryer in the room whilst Jezza tightly folded up our dirties. We made sure that everything needed for our overnight stop in Brussels was to hand in our backpacks, and closed up the suitcases for the last time.
We left the hotel earlier than planned at about 11:00 and took the bus to the metro station, two trains then a trolley bus to the the airport. We arrived at the airport just after midday.
The queues for security were quite long. I tipped out our water bottles when we got into the airport, only to find that liquids were allowed 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️. Once into security, we did all the usual and I made sure that I was wearing a non wired bra. I couldn’t believe it when I set the machine off 😳😳. Note to self: don’t wear hair clips through the machine 🙄🙄. I had put my cardigan and apples from breakfast into my little nylon shopping bag, which was pulled to one side. I told the chap it was only my lunch , but he still waved his wand at them 😂😂😂. Excitement all over, we went to look for our gate which wasn’t yet on the board.
I found a water fountain and filled up our bottles. Flightradar Jezza (a man of many talents, not to be underestimated) checked on our plane which seemed to have gone round half of Europe before coming to Prague – it was running about 45 minutes late.
I had been allocated seat 16F by the emergency exit which had extra leg room (because I really need it 😂). As it was an exit, it had be kept clear, so my backpack had to go up in the overhead locker with my case. As I had the window seat and my neighbouring passengers were already seated comfortably, I wasn’t able to get anything out of my backpack for the journey 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️. To add insult to injury, the seat (see pic below) was only half a seat!!! Good job I’d been clocking up my lengths in the pool 😂🤣😂.
It was only a short flight and after the last few days’ early starts, I decided to close my eyes – how I wished I had one of those blow up neck pillows!! I started to doze off, but felt my mouth dropping and my head tilting, (don’t say you’ve never experienced that!!!) so I decided against making a complete fool of myself and stayed awake and played Cribbage …. Funnily enough, in Row 3, Jezza had also dozed off, but he woke himself up snoring 😴🤣
The flight was only just over an hour and we landed about 16:30. Charleroi Airport was chaotic. We made our way to the pick up point for the shuttle bus to our hotel and arrived shortly after 17:00. It’s a no frills hotel, perfect for an overnight stay, with the shuttle bus taking us in the morning for our flight to Béziers – another early start for us, but the end is in sight.
We found an Italian restaurant about a 10 minute walk away. Jezza was delighted to see that a litre of house wine was 13€ – that’s more like it 😂🤣. The starter menu featured garlic snails and frogs legs 🤢🤢.
The restaurant didn’t disappoint- we started with olives and tomatoes on crostini which filled a hole as we hadn’t really eaten since breakfast- just a stolen apple each 😂😂.
Jezza had a rib-eye steak – he’ll still be having it for a while – he said it was magnifique!! I had scampi on a skewer with salad and frites which was just perfect . The rosé was very palatable too. 😋
For dessert, Jezza had flambéed crepe – similar to crepe Suzette – and I asked for a cup of hot water for my peppermint tea bag 🤪.
Jezza found himself a new friend in the restaurant – a little terrier – she was 16 and didn’t look it!! She didn’t take to me, but loved Jezza 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔.
We thoroughly enjoyed the last meal of our Northern European trip – it was good to be able to speak once again in our adopted mother tongue 🇫🇷 – we’ve stepped zillions of steps – actually about 180,000, seen lots of things and had a great time. I’ll have to reread this blog to remember everything!!!
So, I’ll say goodnight to you all. Tomorrow’s another day, but also the last of our tour.
À demain pour la dernière fois 😘
Total steps : 11,912
