September 29, 2016
Ghent: Into the wind
It was such fun riding out of Brugge this morning. I have never seen so many cyclists on the go - even in Copenhagen . They were mostly kids on their way to school and workers off to work - there were hardly any cars at all. The skill of the cyclists on these cobbles was amazing and they travelled at speed - Ken and I were rather of a nuicense as we bounced slowly along. Some of course were parents taking their children to school, frequently they had the children on their bikes with them. The best I saw however was one mum who had three children aboard two in front of her and one behind. If she was in Australia or New Zealand she would need an SUV to cart them to school and all the others would be in cars too and this wonderful medieval city would be in grid lock.
Over the bridge we bumped and on to the canal that would lead us all the way to Ghent, really a very easy route but only one problem for the first time we were facing a fierce wind. John Stoppard would be delighted by the canal as it is still very much a working canal. I was very suprised by the very large number of cargo boats we saw. People clearly lived on them, there were lace curtains at the windows of the living quaters and cars on the decks - however they got the cars off I have no idea. One barge even had a carefully protected children's play area. Off to the side were a number of small towns and being Belgium nothing was open before 11am to get a coffee, in fact we couldn't even find an open backery to get bread for lunch. We did stop for a bit of a rest at one point and had a nectarine.
All along the way were cyclists but of course once we got into Ghent we were once again in the thick of them. We found the pedestrianised centre and with some difficulty found the information. By now however everything was open so we were able to stop and have some lunch.
The plan is to stay put tomorrow then move on on Saturday, if the weather is bad we will get a train to Brussels if it is OK we will ride to a small town near the airport to prepare for the long trip home
Today's ride: 53 km (33 miles)
Total: 2,883 km (1,790 miles)
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