Ieper; Thursday, 24 March, 2016

I had a half day from work and so a little before 1pm I headed out of the office and towards the station. The trains were playing up a little so in the end I had a good 20-minute wait and it was fast approaching 2 by the time I got to Euston. Thankfully there was a bus going the couple of stops down to St Pancras so I still made checkin with time to spare.

After all the horrid events earlier in the week in Brussels the security checks were tight and took a bit longer than normal, but it wasn’t too bad and I was sat in the departures lounge for a good 10 minutes before the train was called for boarding.

The train arrived into Brussels a little late, which was good as it meant I had to spend less time in Midi station which was a very tense place, with large numbers of heavily armed soldiers wandering around. Within 15 minutes of arriving I was already on a train heading back out of the station and towards Flanders

Having changed trains in Kortrijk I finally arrived in Ieper a little before 9. Thankfully the heavy rain that had been lashing the trains since Ghent had petered out so I was able to walk into the centre of town and over to my hotel in the dry.

By the time I got to the hotel and checked in it was too late to have dinner, so I had a quick bar snack and a drink before turning in for the night.