Hoi

Well we had a good time on our return to Nancy, we went to the Fine Arts Museum in the afternoon, which had a lot of old, religious paintings but also some new, modern stuff which ws better. The hotel Campanile Nancy was really well located with secure parking nearby and we found a lovely cobbled street for dinner. Thursday night atmosphere was like a weekend, all the French were out drinking in the sunshine and there was a lovely wine bar for an aperitif. Dinner was 'ok' but not as good as we had hoped - I had crab raviolli, followed by duck (which I'd expected a breast and sauce but instead got it on a skewer with pasta!) and James had a duck starter followed by a steak with a unidentified sauce!! At 100 euros it was nowhere near as tasty or good value as our plat du jour!

However the evening light show was amazing, the square was really busy - and it had been pretty much empty every time we had visited before, so it's clearly a crowd puller and deservedly so.

And on Friday we drove the 4 hours up to Spa. We had very low expectations for the campsite but were delighted with a small field, long grass (comfy for the tent) and a pitch we could have the car on too. There were portaloos, of course, but they were only bad on the last day and also lovely hot showers which I managed to time well, as no queue.

Friday we set up and walked to the circuit, it was about half an hour to the entrance but then once inside, there are miles to walk around (if you want to) - we spent the afternoon in the Fan Zone where they had a great selection of Bond cars to look at, plenty of beer and food tents and a large stage with plenty of going on. They have 'bobble heads' which are the charicatures of the drivers, see pic when James met Lewis Hamilton!

Friday night the camping field was busy but not packed, and all different nationalities but plenty of Dutch supporting Max Verstappen and all wearing orange (yey, my favourite colour!) They are quite a crazy bunch and one camper had the music blaring with a full variety of hard house music, heavy (very heavy) rock over dinner, followed by some kind of Italian love songs!!

The opposite field had a few fireworks going off too, no-one was reading the 'rules' we were given about no noise, no fireworks etc!!

We had a great day Saturday walking most of the circuit and watching the practice and qualifying as well as some of the Porsche race. We left before the F2 race and were thankful not to have seen the fatal crash for their driver. Naturally, that put a bit of a dampener on Sundays racing and with Max Verstappen crashing at the first corner, the majority of the fans were disappointed and not quite their vocal selves. At Spa they have an entire grandstand for him, everyone in orange and letting off flares all afternoon so we felt for them that they hadn't even seen him pass in the race. There had been a very moving minutes silence, right around the course. We moved about during the race, picking different spots to view from and at the end (Lewis was second) we got down onto the start/finish line which was pretty cool.

The final night at the campsite was a bit more crazy, the Verstappen fans lined the road beside the field and whooped and yelled at every car going past, encouraging them to toot their horns or yell back, and they got all the super cars to rev their engines so it was noisy but fun. Someone then lit a fire (another rule breaker!!) and then they pumped up the music and were singing along for several hours (very badly, reminded us of us) Since it was the 4th night drinking, we were flagging and went to bed at half 9 with a hot chocolate!

We ditched our tent at the campsite as it's pretty knackered now with a broken zip, hole in the floor and several tears. Today we have driven back to Bruges and are having the last night in the city but at our first campsite using the tiny tent we bought for backpacking, that'll be cosy for tonight. We come home tomorrow, we've had another great trip and made more lovely memories but we're also ready for our own bed, dishwasher and a roast dinner!

Next trip will be October for my birthday although we aren't sure where yet x x