European Road Trip – June/July 2013

After a full day exploring Brussels and The Atomium, it was time to jump back in the van and travel to the next destination, Cologne, Germany. However, let’s briefly discuss the car parking situation in the Park Inn (Gare Du Midi). Due to the limited floor space available, rather than having a conventional car park where one can exit onto the street, it is necessary here to drive your vehicle into a elevator, not an easy task with a WAV (wheelchair accessible vehicle)…

Rather than heading straight from Belgium into Germany, it was decided that we would drive through The Netherlands and then down. Now, on the map, it stated that one would be driving through a National Park, however, it simply turned out to be a plain of fields. Still, nice scenery…

For the next two nights, we are staying at the Mercure Hotel Koeln (Belfortstrasse) which is approximately 15-20 minutes walk from the famous Cologne Cathedral and Hohenzollern Bridge. Located on a quaint street, the view from ones room is quite calming in comparison to Lille and Brussels…

The plan for tomorrow is to simply explore Colognes famous centre, visit the Cologne Triangle and take a ride on the city’s cable car (which appears rather precarious)…

One of Brussels star attractions is The Atomium, originally constructed for the 1958 World’s Fair and is located just to the north of the city centre. As we are staying within touching distance of the metro network, it made sense to hop on at Gare Du Midi. Unfortunately, on our walk around yesterday, we discovered that the lift down from street level was out of order. As we only have one full day in Brussels, it was decided that taking the manual wheelchair would be far easier and quicker. The added benefit being that an escalator could be used at Gare Du Midi…

The current rolling stock on the Brussels Metro network possess quite a large gap hence it is required to notify a staff member that one needs a ramp. However, the manual wheelchair made light work of this issue with a little manpower…

Conveniently, the Atomium is located around a 10 minute walk from Heizel metro station (which is wheelchair accessible) and stands proud over its surroundings…

Due to the limited accessibility of The Atomium (only areas that can be accessed via the central elevator are suitable for wheelchairs), disabled individuals can enter for a reduced price (€8,50) Although, very strangely, if you have ‘reduced mobility’, you can enter for FREE.

The individual spheres can be accessed by a series of escalators and stairways which criss-cross the structure with some resembling the launch of Space Mountain in Disneyland Paris.

For one, there was nothing for it but to travel to the individual spheres by foot (or sitting down on escalators), great exercise I will admit!

The tram network also runs fairly close to the Atomium and is far more wheelchair friendly with level boarding (although some gaps are quite wide) and spacious areas hence it was decided that we would meander our way back to the hotel using this mode of transportation…

Tomorrow, we head over the border again, this time into Germany with the destination being Cologne!

Another lovely day awaited us, as we travelled Brussels, in Belgium. Seeing as one was feeling lazy, we didn’t set off until about 11. A journey that could have taken 1 hour, took more like 4, as we decided to go exploring the Belgian towns and countryside. This involved getting lost again, but all fine!

We arrived into the bustle of Brussels with the sat-nav playing up, which meant us going to some interesting parts, having to reverse back up some streets onto roundabouts. We checked in to our second Park Inn by Radisson (Centre Midi) and then decided to go for a wander around Gare du Midi to take some photos and see how the access was for the metro tomorrow, which involved me nearly getting killed by a tram above surface, you have to have your wits about you here!

Although when I looked at the step up to the metro on YouTube it didn’t look high, in reality it is quite high! So I think it will be a manual wheelchair visit to the Atomium tomorrow. Oh well, it’s not bad going for 3 days abroad!

As I mentioned previously, the first destination on our epic European Road Trip is the French city of Lille. For ease, we are staying at The Park Inn by Radisson (Grand Stade) which is located just a stones throw away from the motorway network and adjacent to Pierre Mauroy Stadium.

The Park Inn, as expected, contains fully wheelchair accessible rooms complete with an adequate wet room etc.

The other reason why we are staying at said hotel is that it is only around a 15 minute walk away from Lille’s metro system which takes you into the heart of the city. It is worth noting that the network is fully accessible with elevators located at all stations and level boarding. However, the metro tickets can be confusing, and unlucky for us the train that we caught was part of a random inspection. It then transpired that our tickets were not valid so we got kicked off and made to buy new ones! My PAs tried to explain the situation and after a few gestures it was all sorted.

The plan was to hop off at Gare De Flandres to explore said station, however, in true metro system fashion, we discovered that the elevator was undergoing maintenance. After denying a guy from trying to lift the chair, we jumped back on and headed down one stop to Rihour which, conveniently, surfaces at one of the main squares…

One of the main draws to visit Lille was to visit its 2 train stations (due to ones love for trains!). It goes without saying that both were fully wheelchair accessible…

It is worth noting that many restaurants, especially in the Grande Plaza contain steps at the entrance, no matter though (we are in Western Europe mind) as one of the waiters came out of the restaurant that we chose with a portable ramp…

After lunch, we decided take a walk around Lille and came across the citadel, it also contained a large park with a canal running alongside it, packed full of people and ALL accessible!

Tomorrow, we head to the capital of Belgium, Brussels, stopping at a town called Silly for lunch.