Holiday season

My first holiday of the year starts tomorrow. Where better for the beer lover than Belgium, where the appendage 'brewer' is highly respected by everyone and the alcohol police are yet to hold sway.

I'm staying with my family in Sunparks,in the quaint, slightly up-market resort of De Haan on the coast. Sunparks is a sort of League 2 version of Center Parcs. It's under the same ownership as Center Parcs and bizarrely was re-branded as such last year only to revert to its former name again this year. It isn't in the middle of nowhere  - the only partly true strap line is 'In the Middle of Everywhere' - but that's a plus point for me. A semi-detached house, tropical pool complex and excellent transport routes including a bus to Bruges and the the wonderful coastal tram which runs every 15 minutes from the French border in the east to the Dutch coast in the east.

'De Torre' in De Haan. A stylish Art Nouveau bar, typical of the architecture of the town, just 18 steps from the tram stop.

There's a couple of very good bars in De Haan, and plenty of others along the coast and my day out in Bruges will be especially beery. Op uw gezondheid!