Faculté Polytechnique De Mons / Site Houdain

Today we headed to Mons a delightful little town about an hours drive from Limal. Our reason to be in Mons was twofold first to have lunch with Brigitte’s kids and grandchildren to celebrate her birthday and second to attend the Beatles day ( a separate entry required for this).

I had no expectations about Mons and was pleasantly surprised by this beautiful city which is full of character and culture and beautifully set out.

We were supposed to have lunch at this up market Chinese Restaurant ( a friend Brigitte’s aunt and uncle run it) but we discovered after trying to ring for a few days that the restaurant was closed until mid October. In a panic, Brigitte looked on-line and found a place that had good reviews, was situated just off the Grand Place and got 4.7 on trip adviser.

It was a small “restaurant” with Formica tables and when you asked for a soft-drink there was no glass provided and you required to drink it directly from a can! Brigitte was mortified but we soldiered on and had lunch there, the food was pretty basic but edible and the price of the entire meal was substantially lower than Brigitte had expected (the silver lining?). We had advised the waitress that took our orders that Stéphane was allergic to nuts and she advised that the dish he had ordered was “nut free” but then we saw that the rice and noodles that accompanied the meals was covered in nuts.
We checked again that Steph’s meal was safe to consume and were assured it was, however, as Steph started to eat the meal he started to feel unwell. He took an anti-histamine and started feeling nauseous and generally unwell. He went out for some fresh air and we fixed up the bill and headed out.

As we had some time and the kids were having dessert, Nathalie and Melanie and I took a little tour around the city. The Grand Place was buzzing as there was a never ending parade of weddings going into the Town Hall. We will definitely have to visit again as Geertje told me that it was voted the cultural capital of Brussels.Read more