All other Newspaper Publishing rules apply.The Independent on Sunday travel editor’s decision will be final.Prize tickets may be used at any time before 31 December this year.Happy eating.. Alternatively, fax it to: 0171 293 2043, or email it to: sundaytravel independent.co.uk, putting “Food Olympics” in the subject field.Entries must be received by Monday 30 June. In addition, the winning entry will be published in the Independent on Sunday travel pages.Send your entry, typed and double spaced on unlined paper to: Food Olympics, Travel Desk, Independent on Sunday, 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5DL. Avoid absurdity: if your account is fictitious, it should be believable enough for us not to know any better (stories of breakfast in Bermuda and lunch in Australia for example are unlikely to impress).
Send us the story of your day of itinerant eating in no more than 500 words and the author of the most entertaining (and credible) account will receive two first-class return Eurostar tickets to Brussels. How may different countries can you do? We are looking for entertaining accounts from readers who have managed to partake of meals, snacks and drinks in as many different countries as possible in the space of a single day. We are now extending a challenge to readers of the Independent on Sunday. My pre-dinner drink was served to me some hours later in a seedy bar near the Gare de Midi in the Belgian capital Brussels.

Dinner then comprised lemon sole and prawn salad on Eurostar as the plains of northern France flashed past at 180 miles per hour, and finally, on arrival back in England, I dropped in at my local for a late half of Guinness before heading to bed. For lunch I enjoyed sausage and beer in a bar across the Moselle River in Germany (the Germans may not be famous for their food but the steamed sausage is one of their greatest contributions to man). The roll call of meals and countries during my weekend in Luxembourg was, briefly, as follows. For breakfast I had croissants and coffee in the railway station in sunny Luxembourg City. Cheapest return fare pounds 113+pounds 7 taxAccommodationExpensive in Luxembourg, though in the station area rooms can be found for about pounds 30. The Youth Hostel on Rue de Fort Olisy, 2 (Tel: 00 352 226889) has beds from about pounds 10InformationLuxembourg Tourist Office (0171 4342800). Travel time from London to the Luxembourg border is about seven hours.

British Rail International (0171 834 2345) can supply tickets right through to Luxembourg City. If driving, Luxembourg is only 200 miles from Ostend.Flying to Luxembourg: Luxair (0181 7454254) flies twice daily from Heathrow and Stansted. And at the village of Wormeldange I finally stepped out across the road-bridge into the Federal Republic of Germany. There was no passport control here; not even a sign saying “Welcome to Germany”. I walked into the first bar, and paid for a hearty brotwurst with Belgian Francs. If the European Union was this civilised, I wanted to live in it forever.FACT FILEGetting thereA return train ticket from London Waterloo to any Belgian station, via Brussels, can be obtained from Eurostar (0345 303030) for an additional pounds 10 on top of the standard excursion price of pounds 99 (until 14 July, mid- week fares start from pounds 69). We believe in the European majority…”This was awesomely reasonable for a country of 400,000 people whose direct neighbours contained upwards of 130 million.”…but what a pity,” he went on sadly, “that you British drive on the left It means you are not real Europeans.”No? I plodded on.

Finally, in a hilly village just short of the border, an old man with a wheelbarrow mumbled something at me that sounded like “Guten Morgen”. So! The German sphere!I seized my chance: Did the man feel more German or French? He paused, thoughtfully, before answering in German with a French accent “I’m not sure,” he concluded “But no matter. Given that the city contained 220 banks, surely there had to be people somewhere?Perhaps they were up in the north-east of town, where a huge swathe of cityscape – out on the Kirchberg Plateau – had been built to house European institutions The Court of European Justice was there. And in June and October, the Council of Ministers briefly decamped from Brussels to Luxembourg for no reason other than to satisfy ancient protocols.On Sunday morning, unenlightened, I set out to walk the 20 or so kilometres to Germany. Next door was the Grand Ducal Palace.It was tempting to interpret the extraordinary green fissure that cuts through the middle of Luxembourg City as the ultimate battle-line between the French and German worlds On either side of the line there was little sign of life It felt empty, even in the central square Even on a Saturday night My God, even in bloody McDonald’s. Within minutes of arrival I had seen a small building down a back-street with a sign announcing that it was the Chamber of Deputies.

Latin or otherwise, it struck me as the most blessed capital in Europe – containing less than 100,000 people. Was Luxembourg falling on the wrong side of the Franco-German culinary divide as well?I finally staggered into the confines of Luxembourg city around 5pm. Farmhouses ranged from the faintly rustic – chickens pecking in the yard, a man in blue overalls – to the terrifyingly modern. Heaps of logs were stacked with fanatic neatness in garages, with metal signs announcing “Surveille par Securicor” perched on top. Fruit orchards had been carefully fenced off in an un-Latin sort of way.After some hours, at a tiny junction by a cornfield, a sign indicated that it was 8km to Luxembourg City. Of suburban outcroppings were there no sign, just a few very expensive cars behaving politely to each other.