The International Croissant Eating Weekend (ICEW) was a great success. We managed to eat croissants in 3 countries in 2 days. Though to be honest the French croissant was a let down as we had it on the ferry on the way home. But we were only in France for about 30 mins on the way out.

The story begins in the mild mannered village of Marlborough, Wiltshire on a cool evening in a pub called the Ball and Castle. The 3 of us decided a trip to somewhere in France or Belgium would be fun and we could take the car over on the ferry for about £50. So a date was fixed and planning began.

By the time we left we had a ferry ticket. Well it is a start. 2 days before we left, the exhaust pipe fell off the car. I fell to pieces and Pippa salvaged the trip by calling the garage around the corner that came and took our car away and returned it with a fixed exhaust pipe, a £70 bill and a new, very loud rattle somewhere inside the car. But it was working so the trip was on.

I also forgot when I booked us on the 8AM ferry from Dover that we had to be there 1 hour before to go through customs. After all this was an 'International' croissant eating weekend. This meant leaving London at 5AM and getting up at 4AM. So in 10 hours we drove through 2 international borders, crossed the channel and ate croissants in England. A good start so far and the car held it together.

We arrived at the port in Dover and breezed through customs with only Amy having her bag removed from the boot and checked. It was black leather and obviously full of drugs. Pippa and I had a red mini back-pack (so we were obviously considered fine!). We were allocated lane 48 and were the 3rd car in line so felt very smug driving past all the cars in lane 49 to get to the front. Lane 49 boarded first so the smug cloud did not last long. Anyway we drove on, on the left and parked and left the car in the hold and walked up to the passenger decks.

The ferry was nice in a cheap travel option kind of way. There was a duty free shop selling perfume, alcohol and tobacco and a few maps, travel books and phrase books in French, Dutch and German. But more importantly all the stuff we needed to convert our French built Renault into a French car. First an orange triangle for the road if we break down, a high visibility jacket if we break down at night, a 'GB' (Great Britain) magnet to tell other drivers this is a right hand drive car with an inexperienced idiot behind the wheel who has never driven on the right hand side of the road (and a set of spare bulbs for missing headlights! *ed). And head light redirection covers to point the lights forward and not into the eyes of the oncoming traffic.

Ironically as the car held together and we did not drive at night the only thing we used was the 'GB' idiot warning magnet. Also we bought a French phrase book which we never used and a Dutch phrase book which we used briefly to establish that Flemish (Northern Belgium language) is absolutely nothing like Dutch.

But after all this on the ferry we drove off ON THE RIGHT all the signs are in English for the idiots with 'GB' magnet identifiers. Out of the port with me behind the wheel, Pippa with a map of France and Amy with a borrowed GPS we found our way to the North Sea, which you would think would be easy given it is quite big. De Panne was our first stop for re-grouping after the ferry and planning where we were actually going to go now we were in Belgium. Remember we started this trip with only a ferry ticket, no accommodation, food or water (!we had food and water albeit dodgy, slightly dried up croissants and muffins from Giraffe's "bakery" section and a small 600ml bottle of water! *ed) and no ability to speak the language of where we were going.

De Panne however proved very nice. Sunny, blue sky, and in a beach cafe with a vin rouge pour moi, Leffe bierre pour Pippa and Tea pour Amy. (See, bad French in Flemish speaking Belgium) But this place looked like Noosa. New high rise flats built along the beach and cheap post card shops behind the less cheap waterfront cafes. Over the drinks and nibbles we decided to stick to the original plan and stay on the coast road and head for Zeebrugge near the Dutch border about 70 kms away.

By the time we reached Oostende the coastal scenery had not changed. Everything still looked like Noosa and we wanted to see Belgian fishing villages and olde worlde chocolate shops and cheese shops in town centres with cobble-stone streets. Well it was lunch time and we decided to stop in Oostende about half way along the coast, eat and reassess the situation.

Oostende proved to be a bit of a surprise. On the good side there was a Gothic cathedral and some cobble-stone streets, several cafes offering waffles and a few chocolate shops. Also there was a fair going on and thus lots of noise and fun and roller coasters. So we decided to try for accommodation here and forget the idea of reaching Zeebrugge along the coast.

What presented itself was the Rubens Hotel on the marina. It was a little older and the lady who ran it was very nice and we got 2 rooms on the third floor for 80 Euro each. Cool, accommodation organised let's look for dinner and waffles. Off to the cathedral for a look and stroll around the town. Before the hotel we had lunch in a cafe with a waffle cooker out the front. The waitress was very busy but we discovered that 'bewoners' in Flemish means 'residents only', so time to move the car.

We played a game in the fair and won Anouk an Emo Eeyore Donkey Toy. We had a bit of a struggle finding anywhere that offered vegetarian food without fish. And finally the find of finds was a deli cafe where you stroll around pointing at olives, dips, cheese, bread etc. which is then collected together onto a plate and delivered to where you are sitting with your wines. This made for a very nice dinner and a bag of cheese to take home to England. After dinner we found a waffle seller and had 'ayn waffle mit suiker und ayn waffle mit chocalat und ayn waffle mit chacolat und slagroom'. Suiker we figured was sugar, chocalat was obvious so I decided to go with the slagroom, after all what could be so bad if it was on a waffle. Good bet, slagroom was cream. Again Flemish is NOT Dutch. But I must have done OK because the seller thanked me in French rather than assuming I was English speaking because I gave his language a go rather than just breaking out into English. I also learnt that a well cooked fresh waffle in Belgium is much yummier than anything Sara Lea might throw together in Australia (I disagree *ed - they're both revolting!).

Fatigue got the better of us and we strolled back to the hotel.

Breakfast the following morning in the hotel allowed us to accomplish more of our goals for the trip. There was a continental breakfast waiting for us and in the basket were 3 huge croissants. Hooray! Croissants in Belgium we are truly maintaining the goals of ICEW. The rest of breakfast was chocolate spread on bread rolls, though Amy did add cheese which was a little strange. (If not a little inspired! - ed)

After breakfast we checked out and strolled around Oostende to the cathedral, railway station and along to the beach. The beach proved impossible to get to because of a massive amount of road works. We decided to head inland towards Bruges to find what we thought Belgium should look like. We had eaten waffles and chocolate and croissants so we knew what Belgium should taste like. With me driving and Pippa map reading and Amy doing the GPS from the back seat we failed to drive around Bruges and did a big circle just out of town and never really saw it before finding ourselves heading south west towards Veurne and Dunkerque. But Pippa found us a back road and we got off the freeway and headed to Torhout. This was a great idea.

Torhout was a small town with a cobble stone town centre surrounded by cafes and restaurants. We parked where there was no 'Bewoners' signs and strolled to a cafe where we had the biggest bowl of spaghetti with cheese sauce each. Pippa got to have a Hoegaarden and I had a nice red wine while Amy once again went for hot chocolate and got snacks of peanuts and biscuits. I think she knows the secret to getting free biscuits in Europe.

After Torhout we drove into Dunkerque to try and find the beach the Allied Forces were evacuated from in WWII. But with no decent map and time running short to get to the ferry we had the briefest of stops in the town centre but saw very little of Dunkerque apart from a sign saying "Memoriale Allied" pointing in the opposite direction to where we were going.

A very slow trip through French and British customs before boarding the ferry at 5:50 PM for a 6PM sailing. Thus the ferry was late leaving France. The croissants on the ferry were almost inedible having sat around all day going back and forward across the English Channel. But we needed to eat a croissant in France and this was our last chance. We got a great sunset though and came into Dover some time after 8PM local time. Still hungry, as dinner options on the ferry were crap, we stopped at a (mediocre! *ed) pub in Dover before driving home to London.

Overall a great weekend but a few hints for the younger players: don't buy a phrase book, by a lonely planet guide; have a decent map of where you are going; bring your own food to the ferry; waffles are very nice and slagroom is not a bad thing; Belgium is NOT on the coast it is inland; don't try and drive too far from the port if you only have 1 night, better to go to a nicer port town like Calais or St Malo and stay there.