Advantages: clean, tidy, good service and price Disadvantages: need a taxi to get into town
...I have been on two different Christmas Shopping bus trips and both times have stayed at the Ghent Holiday Inn. The price of each trip was £99 inclusive of bus travel, ferry crossing and two nights accomodation at the Holiday Inn.
LOCATION
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The Holiday Inn Ghent is around 60km from Brussels and is situated in central Belgium which makes it ideal to explore the country. It is near the intersection of the E17 and E40 motorways.
It is 65km from Ostend airport in Holland and 62km from Antwerp airport .
On the first trip that I went on we visited Valkenburg and Ostend in Holland, and Aachen in Germany and each day we made good time and were not rushed at all.
The nearest town is Gent which is around 3km away. There are plenty of restaurants, shops and bars in Gent.
FACILITIES
+++++++++
The hotel is used...
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Advantages: Sweet Belgian city with some interesting unique things to see Disadvantages: Not booming out of season
.... The gift shop at the back has an excellent selection of post cards, and various religious souvenirs.
The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb is discussed in great deal at this website:
http://www.trabel.com/gent/gent-misticlambintroduction.htm
or see Wiki's version at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GhentAltarpiece
Opposite the cathedral is one of the only tourist shops in Ghent, but luckily it's a very nice one with a good range of cheap goods and friendly, English speaking staff. Down past there is the McDonalds (home to new-to-you McFlurrys and dodgy toilet attendants) and if you're walking round the city that's the point where you should turn right and walk past the post office, parallel to the river bank.
The river which runs alongside a large part of the City, and is home to one of the most picturesque streets in Ghent which...
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Advantages: If you need to be in the centre or Reading it's there Disadvantages: You'll need patience and persistence to find it
...To set things in context before I even start to describe my experience at the Ibis in Reading, I think it's only fair to confess that I hate Ibis hotels. With a passion! I really did wonder what I'd done to offend our secretary and get booked in this one. I'm sure I didn't forget her birthday, raid the stationery cupboard or commit any other serious secretary-annoying offences. If there's one thing guaranteed to put a damper on my day it's that little four-letter word on a hotel booking confirmation. In my hotel-dictionary, the definition next to the word Ibis says 'nasty penny pinching crappy hotel'.
Location
My first challenge was finding the hotel. When I saw it was near the railway station I was suspicious that parking might be a problem so I rang ahead to check whether they had a car park and, as feared, the answer was no...
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06.04.2006
11.04.2006
