De Stokerij ***

Easy to find, very helpful family run hotel. Evening meal at local restaurant Louis Clesse was excellent, pre-booked by the hotel. Breakfast in hotel also excellent with many home produced articles such as smoked salmon and pate.

This was an overnight stop on our way to Germany. We were welcomed as one of the family we ate in the hotel, the food was superb cooked by the owner almost like a cooking demonstration. We found the hotel by accident on the Internet and thank goodness we did and didn't stay at one of the chain hotels with no atmosphere. We will certainly make this a regular stop over again. Only problem was the sat nav couldn't locate the hotel and it took some time to find best to input Hoge Dijkem, Roksem, we then found it immediately.

At the hotel (after 4,5 ours driving) we get the message that they rent our room to other people, no phonecall no email, nothing at all, so we can go home again, we drive 652 kilometers and we get nothing! We will never go back to this hotel!!!

The hotel is located in Oudenburg, a small village outside Bruges, closer to Ostende. All rooms are decorated differently. Staff is very helpful and friendly. Breakfast is with all home made products.

The De Stokerij is a very pleasant hotel, with friendly staff and comfortable rooms. We've stayed here twice, both times as a first night stay on a long journey to elsewhere. It's ideally located for staying the night after a late afternoon/evening channel crossing to Calais, if you're heading onwards through Belgium. It's very handy for the motorway and somewhere around an hour's drive from the Eurotunnel terminal at Calais. We've stayed in one of the more expensive rooms, with a huge jacuzzi bath, and also in one of the more basic rooms, with just a shower. Both rooms were very comfortable and fair value for money. Our more recent stay was just a couple of days before Valentine's Day, and the hotel was overrun with cutesy hearts and teddy bears. Not our taste, especially with the overwhelmingly sickly rose scent in the room. No sign of such tweeness normally though, so if you have a low tweeness tolerance, avoid mid Frebruary and you'll be fine. The main downside of the hotel is that it's on the edge of a residential area, next to open country, with little in the way of local facilities. There is a restaurant within reasonable walking distance, but take a torch - the country lanes are very dark! And if it's raining, you'd probably rather take the car. The restaurant, the Jan Breydel, will be recommended to you by the hotel, and they'll make a booking if you need it. It was very quiet on the Thursday evening when we were last there, though, so bookings might not be necessary. It's not a particularly cheap place, but the fish is highly recommended - they'll give you a list of what they have from the market today, and a choice of how you'd like your potatoes with it. My only real criticism is that they seem to oversalt their veg. Staff are very friendly and though they don't all speak English (and why should they?) there's generally someone with enough English for you to get by. Breakfast at the hotel is the usual range of cereals, breads, cold meats and cheeses, with eggs freshly cooked if you'd like them, and a basket of pastries. It's all good, and you certainly won't go hungry.