Cute and freshly decorated little house with good facilities (coffee machine, nice shower room, parking included), very convenient for the centre and motorway if you are stopping en route south. Excellent communication from the host. Bethune is a well kept secret. Tidy, classically Flemish town square and surrounding streets. Close to the house, which is up a little alley off rue de Lille, are a friendly boulangerie, cafe-tabac and a little further on a large Carrefour market.

The extractor fan in the downstairs loo was very noisy overnight with no obvious off switch. May just need servicing or for some kind of blockage to be removed. Likewise bright sodium streetlight just outside the house, though obviously that’s outside the control of the owners.

It was a delightful little mews type house and had everything we needed. Perfect for an overnight stay.

There was no one to greet us and we had the key in a box at the side of the house The parking was very difficult. There wasn’t really a space for us but we just managed to squeeze ourselves in. The house is in a tiny, dead end street, positively medieval though with excellent directions. One inside it was lovely, just a little nerve wracking getting in!