Thursday 21st July, 2016 - Dover/Brussels

Up with the lark and ready for the off! We took a photo of ourselves in our “The Masons European Tour 2016” t-shirts before we left. It seemed the dream was becoming a reality at last. Just a 5/10 minute drive to the ferry and we arrived 2 hours before the due sailing time, which is an hour earlier than the recommended check in – that’s my kind of timing. It took us nearly two hours to get through and it was only when we got to the front that we became aware that French Security were checking every passport but only had two or three desks open and only the cars in the lines that went directly to those kiosks were moving as no one was marshalling vehicles to take vehicles in turns from the other queues. By the time we got through we had missed the 11:10 ferry, and we were lucky to get on the 12:05.
Our first campsite does not accept reservations so they had advised us to phone on leaving the ferry, which I did and a very friendly man on the other end of the phone said he’d reserve a pitch for us. Another relief, particularly as we were delayed by road works for an hour en-route.
Camping Grimbergen is a nice little site in the small town/village of Grimbergen, outside of Brussels.

A Street in Grimbergen
The site is situated next door to a large and, on sunny days, very popular outdoor swimming pool and is convenient for very little else, although it is on a bus route into the city. Buses run every 30 minutes and fares are reasonably priced but the route is very circuitous as it goes all around the houses to get there and takes about fifty minutes, a journey that can be made by car in around 20 minutes. The site is run very efficiently by Gert, seemingly singlehanded, 24/7.
Our fellow campers were mainly Dutch or Germans, with only one or two other GB campers appearing during our three night stay.