DAY 19 & 20 & 21 

18 - 20  AUGUST 2021 

BAD HONNEF TO AACHEN - 70 MILES

AACHEN TO LOUVAIN/LEUVEN - 70 MILES

LOUVAIN/LEUVEN TO BRUGES - 85 MILES

Bad Honnef was a pleasant and civilised place, and after leaving it I was back on to the Rhine heading up towards Bonn, the former capital of West Germany.  The Rhine is still beautiful, but as you got further north you see quit a bit of industry along its banks.  If you go further north it gets even more industrial around Dusseldorf.  I was due to turn off the Rhine between Bonn and Cologne and start to head inland towards Aachen as I tacked northwestward towards Belgium and the Channel ports.  I started to become aware of signs of the flooding that had occurred in July, along the Rhine itself but without too much signs of damage, I guess because they have the necessary measures and defences to limit damage.  However, other places had evidently been taken by surprise by the flooding and there were road closures because of downed bridges and crossings, and signs of debris and detritus all over the place.  Aachen was surprisingly industrial and dull on it outskirts, but it has an old centre and  is the site of the burial place of Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor, crowned in Rome (not in Aachen as I think I said in my Vlog) on Christmas Day 800.  It’s a very important date and event in Western European Christian history because it joined at the hip the Church / Papacy and secular, temporal power - in 800 Charlemagne, a Frank, but in later centuries all sorts of power brokers.  It gave the Church / Papacy a sort of arm to flex and influence events through the Emperor, with all sorts of consequences for the development and culture of Europe over the following 1000 years.  See, I did do medieval history at university !

Friday 20th saw me moving even further north\dswest as I left Aachen to go to Louvain / Leuven in Belgium.  In order to get there I had to pass through a bit of The Netherlands, so in one morning on my bike I was in thee countries - Germany. The Netherlands and Belgium.  I’m not sure there are many places you can get on your bike and pass through three countries in a few hours.  The Netherlands bit was interesting because it was around there that lots of activity took place in the Operations Market and Garden in WW 2 (they were two operations) which didn’t fully succeed.  I realised that Holland is full of rivers and water, as is Belgium in that region.  I followed the Albert Canal for a good number of miles, which was pleasant riding.  Louvain / Leuven (many places have two names, French and Dutch/Flemish) is in Flanders, as was all of my ride today through Belgium.  It’s a strange country, created after the Congress of Vienna in the early 19th century, and really an artificial creation with two very distinctive parts - Flanders, which is Flemish/ Dutch speaking, and Wallonia which is French speaking.  I think there is constant tension between the two parts, and all sort of regional autonomy and independence, although they are technically one country.  

The Belgians don’t ring their bicycle bells, just as the Germans don’t;  the Dutch always ring their bicycle bells.  Cycling provision in The Netherlands is second to none,  better than in Germany or Belgium.  Cycling provision is everywhere in Belgium,  but some of it not too good, but at least it is there.  Belgium is not as tidy and well kept as The Netherlands, or some parts of Germany.  Belgium has a bit of a grey look to it, and is just a bit unkempt.  Of course, it is very flat in this part of the world and I guess that does make the place look like one endless, monotonous layer of being Belgian.    On balance, if I had to choose I think I would be Dutch.  They are as organised and efficient as the Germans, tidier than the Belgians, but appear a bit less assertive and pushy and a bit more easy going than their German neighbours without losing out on getting things right, organised and tidy. Flemish, and Dutch for that matter, always reminds me on hearing of Bill and Ben and the Flower Pot Men, all Flobabdob / Little Weed-ish. I think they called it Oddle Poddle language.  Well, there are definitely cross overs with Flemish / Dutch, at least to my ear. All great generalisations, of course, but it’s what I’m  thinking !

Then today, Saturday 21,  I had to make my way to Bruges / Brugge so that I can get to Dunkirk for a ferry crossing on Sunday.  Also on my mind was the requirement to get a Covid test before I get on the ferry, as well as completing the passenger locater form and Day 2 test arrangements back in England. I managed to find a centre in Brugge and booked a test, latest available today at 5 pm, so in order to get to Brugge in good time I left Leuven at 7 am and by 2 pm was in Ghent, but with another 30 miles to go it was prudent to jump a train, less and 30 minutes ride, to Brugge and be on hand and in good time for the test, which I did.  I’ll get results tomorrow, hopefully in good time for an evening ferry from Dunkirk.  All this cost money, of course.  Some mates of Boris, or Sajid or any other Tory cabinet minister, are making huge amounts of money out of all this testing, not to mention doctors with an eye to a quick buck.  Okay for the likes of me, just me, but imagine how it must mount up if you are a family.  Then this evening, after a very warm and sunny day, the heavens opened with heavy thunderstorms over Brugge, but luckily I was tucked up in my Ibis Budget, only having to brave the rain to get something to eat.  Brugge is busy.  The tourists are out.  Perhaps not as many as they would normally be in high summer, but enough to make the place feel busy.  Brugge is nice, very unspoiled and still has that Flemish urban trading and religious centre feel, which it was.  By the way, Belgium is expensive, more so than Germany which I found really quite sensible.  Food and drink here in Belgium is, I reckon, 30 per cent more expensive than in Germany.  Mind you, it’s the French that take the prize with prices.  I’ve largely stopped going there because it is so overpriced.  A glass of red wine, the same wine, on the French side of the Pyrenees will cost you 8 or 9 euro.  On the Spanish side of the Pyrenees it will cost no more than 4 or 5 euros.  And you know I like my red wine.

So, tomorrow, with luck, I will make it to Dunkirk - only a ride of 50 miles or so - and hopefully my test result will be back, and negative, for me to hop a ferry in the early evening to Dover, and then the train up in London for the night with sister Patsy in The Barbican.  The forecast is for sun and thunderstorms, so I will try and avoid the rain.  If the test result doesn’t come through in time, then it will be a night in Dunkirk, which is not the most prepossessing of places from memory.  At least I could have moulles and frites, or some other fishy thing.  Last night in Leuven I had steak tartare;  the server, sensing that I was evidently English, asked if I knew what it was that I was ordering.  I guess you get lots of English who order it and then on seeing it on the plate put before them realise that they can’t eat what they ordered.  I simply replied: ‘Of course’.  Who doesn’t know what steak tartare is ?  I like mine with lots of Tabasco.