Charleroi (July 2007)

After 15 hours at landing at Luton airport from Roma, it was time to jump on another Ryanair flight from Stansted for the short hop to Charleoi in the Waloon region of Belgium, some 50km south of Brussels.

This time, it wasn't just me and Olga, we had Adam (Work-Mate) Scot and Astra (former landlord with new girlfriend), Rik (my Bro), Tony (my bro's bro) and Kayleigh (Rik's misses), and Ollie Tong (Travel Buddy). So, after the early flight we landed at Charleoi early, and found the bus which takes as straight to Gare de Charleoi in town, a ten minute journey. Oliver was thinking that I was showing off by speaking fluent French to the bus driver! Working with French people in the past did give me an advantage.

A little bit of local knowledge for people who don't know Belgium well.

Belgium was made not that long ago, and is split in two halfs, what I like to call, the Dutch part in the north, which has Antwerpen, Brugge, Gent and Oostend as its main towns, and the French part, which has towns such as Brussels (or Bruxelles), Chareloi, and Leige. This area of Belgium is known as the Waloon region, and had very high unemployment in the area, until Ryanair made this area on of its European bases. Since then, the area is booming at the airport and unemployment rates went down. Anyway, enough of the history....

(blog continued on Brussels - July 2007)