165 ESCAPE TO THE CHATEAU...

We had a nice little get-together on Saturday night: a few friends, a few drinks and the daunting task of booking all the hotels for the trip. All we had to do was agree on four hotels that satisfied five people's individual needs!!! Straightforward, right? Actually, it was pretty painless.

We first had to decide what day we were leaving, which changed from Thursday to Wednesday. This was to give us an extra day in Namur to decompress after the 8-hour drive from Liverpool to Belgium.

Instead of driving all day, checking into a hotel, charging off across the city to register with the organisers, then heading back and packing, we will now get there a day earlier, have a nice meal, a few drinks and then explore the city the following day - much more civilised.

We scoured the Bust Rallies Bible, which handily gave some suggestions, then went through the process of looking at all available hotels, their location, and their facilities, with parking being the most important, unsurprisingly.

We thought that an apartment or villa might be the way to go, as it would mean we could all stay in the same space, plus it might be a little bit cheaper. In reality, hotels were the way to go as there were a lot more available and had those all-important parking spaces.

After scanning the available hotels, Rachel was immediately drawn to a converted chateau - of course, she was! To be honest, I liked the look of it, but it was a little pricey and about a 30-minute walk from the city centre, which was a bit of a pain. After some discussion, we decided to treat ourselves, spend a little bit more and start our trip in style.

This propensity to treat ourselves would be a running theme! I'm not sure if it was because we were excited or slowly getting more drunk, but our accommodation budget kept growing and growing!

So the credit card was whipped out, the rooms were selected, the details were entered, and shortly after, the confirmation was received. We were booked into a stunning former chateau in Namur for two nights! On to the next city.