As you might recall from your school history books, one of Napoleon's right-hand men at the Battle of Waterloo was Marshal Grouchy. And when my wife and I emulated Bonaparte's 1815 army recently, entering Paris in triumph before attempting to advance on Brussels with a force of approximately two small children and a ton of luggage, I was grouchy too.
Our departure from Paris coincided with car-free day. A huge success, which resulted in thousands of Parisians getting taxis from work at precisely the time I was trying to get one to carry our bags from the hotel to the Gare du Nord - where, for strategic reasons, my family was occupying a coffee shop. Forty minutes on the phone later, the hotel informed me that every taxi company in Paris was currently car-free. So, after weighing the options - vehicle-hijack was the main one - and the baggage, there appeared to be nothing for it but to make the 15-minute journey by foot. The bags weren't that heavy, it turns out, and my physiotherapist says the back pain will ease in time.
At least at the station I had no problem finding my wife, because the kids were kicking up such a racket by then that - like the Battle of Waterloo, apparently - they could be heard in parts of Kent. And the other advantage was that, although the next train to Brussels would mean arriving later than our American friends expected us, we had a whole hour to buy the tickets.
Unfortunately, and I've noticed this before about major European railway stations, everyone in the queue for the ticket counter appeared to arrive there with a completely open mind about where and when (or indeed if) they wanted to travel; so that when the counter attendant finished counselling them all, there was only time for us to grab the tickets, the children and the luggage and run for the platform.
Showing calmness under pressure I managed to check that our seats were in car seven. But after depositing the luggage in cars four to six inclusive and checking that we still had the kids, we found car seven to be full. Whereupon, as nonchalantly as I could, considering I was sweating like Joe Dolan in concert and we were blocking the aisle, I rechecked the tickets and found that our return trip was in car seven; this leg was in car 15. There was just enough time to be depressed about this, when we had a lucky break. The conductor informed us that, for technical reasons, the train was in two sections and we couldn't reach car 15 until the next stop; which was Brussels. So instead of having to battle all that way for our seats, we had no seats! How we laughed!
BUT the great thing about stress is that it passes the journey. And we had no sooner gathered the luggage in one place, engaged in profound analysis of why the hell we hadn't left Paris earlier, and planned the operation of getting off, when suddenly we were in Brussels.
The Belgian capital has been the crossroads of Europe, historically, so it was a good place to meet our American friends, who were here in unusual circumstances. Roger and Zelma live in Seattle, where they recently a) had a baby and b) bought a Saab car. As a result of one of these incidents - I can't remember which - they got free flights to Sweden to meet the new arrival!
Now I remember. It must have been the car, because the promotion entitled them pick up their purchase in Gothenburg and drive it around Northern Europe before depositing it in Antwerp, to be shipped to the US. En route, they toured the breathtaking fjords of Norway, where Roger was deeply impressed by the coastal roads which were open to two-way traffic even though they were about the width of the Saab, not including wing mirrors. Luckily, the car's superior road-holding got them all to Belgium intact.
Brussels is famous for its lack of nightlife. But then so is parenthood, which made it an ideal venue. With so much violent history behind them, the Belgians are very fond of peace; and when they saw four adults with three babies approaching, restaurants tended to put us in a separate room, well away from the other diners.
The food in Brussels is excellent, of course, and the city is a world leader in beer, some of the strongest of which is made by Trappist monks (a few bottles, and you can't speak either). So between eating and drinking and seeing which of our babies could drool the most, there was just time for a stroll around the Grand Place and the city park before our friends flew home on Sunday.
Learning from our mistakes, we ordered a taxi to the station well in advance of our return journey. But as luck would have it, Sunday was car-free day in Brussels; and when, several phone calls and 46 minutes later, two taxis arrived simultaneously, there was just time for in-depth discussions about what the hell was going on before one of the cabs got us to the station just as the train was leaving.
We got our seats this time. But as the Duke of Wellington said about the battle, it was a damned near thing.
Frank McNally can be contacted at fmcnally@irish-times.ie
