How to...get from Belgium to England

There are, of course, many ways to travel between Europe’s cities and across the English Channel, including train, ferry and bus. For us, with it being Easter week and without advance purchase, the Eurolines bus was our most economical option.

Eurolines connects city centres in about twenty-four European countries. After the mammoth bus journeys of Mexico and Laos a paltry seven hours between Antwerp and London no longer seemed an obstacle. At an equally paltry 46 Euros, the price was just too tempting to turn down.

The bus arrived early in Antwerp, but was already stuffed full of slumbering bodies and Amsterdam casualties, making inserting ourselves into the legroom-deficient seats a little challenging.

We had opted for the overnight bus departing Antwerp at 23:30 (the other service leaves at midday) and had resigned ourselves to a sleepless night. After a couple of hours the bus stops in Calais at French immigration. Here you disembark and shuffle into French immigration and out again and then into British immigration next door. The new UK Border Agency was a jolly, dapper bunch; it was nice to be welcomed home by fresh-faced chaps in crisp, navy uniforms.

You then wait on the bus until it drives onto the ferry to Dover. You have to get off the bus for the hour and a half ferry crossing across the English Channel. Time enough to settle down for a sleep, or get something to eat or drink. Make sure you remember how to get back to the bus, for once boarding is called the bus doesn’t wait for stragglers.

Then it’s just another couple of hours from Dover to Victoria Coach Station in Central London from where onward buses are plentiful.