Day 16: Luxembourg City and into the Ardennes

July 29, 2024

Hesperange, LU to Bastogne, BE

For some reason today my inside of the tent got wet but the outside was normal amount of dewyness. I think I didn’t properly ventilate the tent last night so will need to dry out my stuff. It didn’t soak anything but added some wetter spots to the sleeping bag. Luckily, another hot and sunny day so surely I can lay it out to dry while grabbing lunch.

Hesperange is just outside the city of Luxembourg, which is the location that really comes to mind when I think of the country. A short 6 km jaunt away.

Given I wanted to see it and cover the Ardennes ascent in the same day I rolled off by 0800 to get a good look at the rush hour vibes of the city.

Luxembourg City is a bustling, modern metropolis interspersed by ancient fortresses and medieval architecture.

After grabbing my morning coffee and pastry at a patisserie, I rolled off again at 1000 back to the bucolic lovely Luxembourgish countryside.

Most of the ride today minus the final 30km is in Luxembourg. Namely the day consists of ascending the Ardennes mountain - tomorrow should be more descent heavy but it will still be quite hilly because, well because Ardennes.

Oh hey it’s our old friend EV5. I don’t think we’ve seen you seen Basel?

Climbing the trail on protected roads with only farm traffic

The climb continued for several thousand feet, but sometimes with shade.

I stopped to watch these two keep diving into fields to find and then coming back up to their nests

The sun came out to play around 1200 just when the climbing began in earnest.

But almost the whole climb was bikes only which was serene. For just the second time this trip I felt the desire to listen to some music while riding, and as I was alone on a bike path, it was time for some Bollywood beats.

Finally, I crossed into Belgium. The sign was placed quite awkwardly but it’s a general rule that your first entry to the country should include the sign if you can find it so here’s the weird selfie angle.

Then just 30km along alternating dirt towpaths and paved bike paths into Bastogne where I would be camping. Notably, we are Wallonia, the region of Belgium that is rural and largely is French speaking - it will be a few days of rolling hills until we reach Flanders region.

There were just a few others there by bike but the tent sites were very spacious so we all had a lot of room to lounge around and relax. I laid all my stuff out to dry under the hot sun while lounging since I got to camp fairly early at 1600.

Keeping in the spirit of eating fuller meals again and not just snacking, I grabbed some food from the local Lidl. Touring in Western Europe is kind of easy mode since many campgrounds are right next to supermarkets or towns or what have you - it’s made things good for a beginner like me especially if I ever need to bail out.

But at this point I think I’ve started earning some camping stripes and starting to enjoy the non hotel nights.

The main downside is a lack of laundry - I will need to either find better solutions or stop more for laundromats. I’ve taken up the habit of hanging my handwashed shorts on my rack during the ride the past few days. I don’t do as good a job of washing anything else, but the shorts and socks are the most important by far for health reasons.

After a night of relaxing and completely neglecting the journal even further, I hit the hay.

Thanks for reading.

Today's ride: 91 km (57 miles)
Total: 1,261 km (783 miles)

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