Each summer our bridge club of six takes a cultural trip to another country to see the sights and learn new things, first hand about its people.

This year we chose Belgium for our cultural event, where we all had the opportunity to gorge ourselves with their world famous and very scrumptious chocolate bonbons. And of course, as Belgium produces the largest selection, no visit would be complete without tasting several varieties of their beer.

We’d been looking forward to our trip since last years tour to Ireland, went without a hitch - well if you don’t count the rain for three days straight. Usually we book our yearly bridge gathering as a package, but this year we decided to do airline tickets and hotel reservations separately - hoping that it would be cheaper. We were delighted that this turned out to be true.

With our airline tickets booked well in advance, we needed to go through our list of online discount hotels to find just the right place, situated centrally for the sightseeing we were planning to do.

The region we planned on visiting was Flanders around the Ypres also known as Ieper (Dutch) district, so Ieper hotels was the logical and best choice for us. We were delighted as the hotel has all the facilities we needed as well as being situated in the city centre, which was very convenient for our visits to the beautiful Cloth Hall (photo top left), St. Martin’s Cathedral and as many other historical sites that we could manage to visit, and with the addition of local restaurants just around the corner where we could savour some of the delicious Belgian cuisine, this hotel choice couldn’t have been better for quality or price.

Online hotel booking has never been easier, better or cheaper, without losing any of the quality. With the Internet at our fingertips booking hotel reservations online at discount hotels was a cinch. We got the best hotel prices saving us money and had a wonderful time into the bargain and with no rain……..