It's just a very short drive to the photography museum this morning and thankfully there is a shop just opposite since the milk we bought last night in Luxembourg had gone lumpy and off 🤢. Whilst we were having our breakfast in the car park we asked Robert to pass his camera over so we could charge it prior to going into the museum. After a long hunt we couldn't find it and getting Robert to mentally retrace his steps he realises that he took it off his neck during our leaf fight and left it on a metal post. Thus began tears from both Robert and Liliya given he's now lost all his photos from the trip. I did call the museum but it hadn't been handed in and I've emailed the police but I would imagine there's zero chance of getting it back. Luckily Al did at least back up the camera before this trip so he hasn't lost them from all holidays and he was lucky to have it back after it was stolen in Italy two years ago but dumped and found by a very kind ex policeman who met up with us on our last day of that holiday to return it. More tears and cuddles then it's time to visit the museum.

The building itself is photo worthy (even though I didn't take one!) as it is in a former monastery. It is the largest and one of the most important photography museums in Europe, with a collection of 100,000 photographs, including more than 800 on permanent display, and the conservation of 1.5 million negatives.

We had joked with Robert that there was a good chance there would be pictures of nude people since the human body is something many artists take pictures of. He's not happy about this idea unlike Liliya who finds the idea of naked people very amusing. Little did we know how right we would be as one of the temporary exhibits was full of naked close ups, one was so explicit that it was covered up so as not to offend!

There were so many interesting pictures along with a room filled with old cameras, Al managed to find his Leica from 1954 (that was also stolen on the trip 2 years ago but sadly never recovered).

Upstairs the kids enjoyed the learning area which featured optical illusions, they especially enjoyed the bendy mirrors.

They did start to get a little silly after a couple of hours so we played the game where in each room the kids had to find their favourite photo. This got them to refocus whilst we finished off the rest of the rooms.

The pictures were so varied, some were artistic, there was a large selection of portraits but the most sobering were pictures from the war capturing the death within the concentration camps. That said I would highly recommend a visit if anyone happens to be near by, we also had a bonus since the museum is free on the first Sunday of every month. We enjoyed our lunch back in the moho then had a 2hr drive back to Dunkirk. We've left plenty of time to get there given its going to be a late night and the kids have school in the morning.

On arriving at Dunkirk this time we were 2.15hrs ahead of time so got to watch the earlier boat set sail. This did give us plenty of time however to check out the duty free and the kids chose to get a couple of lego characters.

The other day in Luxembourg Al found oreo flavoured coke which was very random and really did have a vanilla and biscuity taste to it.

We ate our tea whilst waiting for the boat which worked out perfectly and assuming the traffic coming back goes to plan we'll be home and the kids in bed before 10pm. It's been another great trip despite a couple of set backs and now I can start planning the northern Europe trip for summer 2025.

Team SM over and out