We don't really have the time to give Belgium it's due. Our objective is Koln in five days' time, which does not seem like much, but as the man who chats to me outside a shop points out, the wind can increase your journey time by a third, if it's in the wrong direction. As all cycle-tourers know, the wind is in the wrong direction about 90% of the time.
The country is friendly to cyclists, even if it's not a friendly country. There are cycle paths along most roads - usually sharing the little used pavement. Plenty of cyclists and plenty of options. An easy one is to get onto a canalside and motor. Quite literally, as we share the bike paths with scooters, mopeds and e-bikes. It comes as quite a shock on our first evening to find blue-rinsed old ladies breezing past us with their shopping baskets full. Are we so unfit? The farmland is wide open and flat, flat, flat. You can see for acres, and there's ne'er a hedgerow or tree in sight. We pass through a lovely old town with the distinctive bell tower separate from the church steeple. It is just after five o'clock and everything seems shut. The streets are almost deserted. We've just arrived in the middle of a zombie movie. A bit later we stop at a picnic table near a village to eat. Dog-walkers, runners and cyclists pass by without once giving us eye-contact, let alone a 'bon appetit'. It's enough to make you paranoid.
We make it to Bruges the next lunchtime, and push our bikes through the narrow streets full of tourists, emerging in the main square. It's very pretty, very touristy. The buildings seem to lean towards each other over the cobbles, as if to confide with each other. At street level everything seems business as usual - same old same old shops. We are passing through, we have no time - the city deserves better from us. On the way out through the more modern and plain back streets we are struck by the number of bikes parked on the streets, without locks, clearly left outside the houses for want of space inside. Everyone here cycles, it seems.
We much prefer Ghent to Bruges. Is it because the wider canals and streets give us more to see, more to look at? Less tourists? Or is it because we arrive mid-morning and spend more time walking around? The canals and old merchant buildings in the centre are impressive, and the scale and size of the enormous medieval churches leave your neck sore and your jaw aching. Ghent was known as the Manchester of Europe because it was the first city on the continent to start a mechanised weaving industry. Other than this, there are no similarities whatsoever. We cycle over huge junctions of locks where the canals connect with the port - a canal leads out to the sea.
Oh but we are sick of the dour Belgians already. Terse, unsmiling. Cyclists we pass don't let on. No smiles, or waves, or acknowledgements. Of course, we are not special or unique in a land full of cyclists, but we are used to saying hello to people. In the evening we stop to get water in a village and the only place is a bar full only of men, apart from the woman serving behind the bar. When I walk in the conversations actually stop and everyone listens to what I ask for. It's a scene from a Trappist Western.
After a few flat days we finally come to hills as we approach Maastricht and the Dutch and German borders. We begin to enjoy the cycling again because now we have views. The Belgian villages have all become strung out as new houses are built along all the approach roads. This makes the scenery quite boring - nothing beats the greens of farms and countryside. So being in the hills is a pleasant variation to this. We are looking forward to Germany.
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| a Belgian restaurant |
The country is friendly to cyclists, even if it's not a friendly country. There are cycle paths along most roads - usually sharing the little used pavement. Plenty of cyclists and plenty of options. An easy one is to get onto a canalside and motor. Quite literally, as we share the bike paths with scooters, mopeds and e-bikes. It comes as quite a shock on our first evening to find blue-rinsed old ladies breezing past us with their shopping baskets full. Are we so unfit? The farmland is wide open and flat, flat, flat. You can see for acres, and there's ne'er a hedgerow or tree in sight. We pass through a lovely old town with the distinctive bell tower separate from the church steeple. It is just after five o'clock and everything seems shut. The streets are almost deserted. We've just arrived in the middle of a zombie movie. A bit later we stop at a picnic table near a village to eat. Dog-walkers, runners and cyclists pass by without once giving us eye-contact, let alone a 'bon appetit'. It's enough to make you paranoid.
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| another Belgian restaurant |
We make it to Bruges the next lunchtime, and push our bikes through the narrow streets full of tourists, emerging in the main square. It's very pretty, very touristy. The buildings seem to lean towards each other over the cobbles, as if to confide with each other. At street level everything seems business as usual - same old same old shops. We are passing through, we have no time - the city deserves better from us. On the way out through the more modern and plain back streets we are struck by the number of bikes parked on the streets, without locks, clearly left outside the houses for want of space inside. Everyone here cycles, it seems.
We much prefer Ghent to Bruges. Is it because the wider canals and streets give us more to see, more to look at? Less tourists? Or is it because we arrive mid-morning and spend more time walking around? The canals and old merchant buildings in the centre are impressive, and the scale and size of the enormous medieval churches leave your neck sore and your jaw aching. Ghent was known as the Manchester of Europe because it was the first city on the continent to start a mechanised weaving industry. Other than this, there are no similarities whatsoever. We cycle over huge junctions of locks where the canals connect with the port - a canal leads out to the sea. |
| Belgian gothic |
Oh but we are sick of the dour Belgians already. Terse, unsmiling. Cyclists we pass don't let on. No smiles, or waves, or acknowledgements. Of course, we are not special or unique in a land full of cyclists, but we are used to saying hello to people. In the evening we stop to get water in a village and the only place is a bar full only of men, apart from the woman serving behind the bar. When I walk in the conversations actually stop and everyone listens to what I ask for. It's a scene from a Trappist Western.
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| the only trouble with canal side bike paths... |
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| typical village house in Belgium - note the use of a moat to keep the neighbours out |
