August 1, 2024
Day 19: Reaching Brussels
Namur, BE to Brussels, BE
I woke up around about 7 and got to it with all the chores. It was absolutely pouring down so since checkouts not until 11 I decided to wait it out and do various cleaning and repackaging and route planning that needs to be done. Roughly, I need to make sure my nav route to Brussels avoids highways I encountered yesterday and then I need to figure out how to get from Brussels to my final destination.
Now that we’re this far into the trip I feel comfortable saying the intended final destination is London. After Brussels, the final legs of the trip are Flanders (via Ghent and Bruges), the French coastline to Calais, then the Southwest of UK through into London.
Anyways once the route was planned and all things repackaged, the rain had died down a bit. I expect most of the day till mid afternoon to be a bit wet.
Before heading off into the wet we must of course take a selfie.
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I rolled off at about 10:15 much to the amusement /surprise of the front desk.
This is our last day in Wallonia so while there is some ascending it’s only about 500m over the course of the day, and not as often or as steep as previously.
All in all the sprinkles kept me a bit refreshed after multiple scorching hot days in Wallonia. A surprisingly appreciated change.
Lunch was around 14. I got a curried chicken sandwich from I think what is essentially a truck stop - it was alright.
As we approach Brussels around 15, I started to see signs in Flemish Dutch! What’s been really neat about this trip is getting to see a little of a lot. I admit I went for breadth instead of depth - Italian speaking, German speaking (many dialects), French , Dutch, and soon English.
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The Brussels administrative zone is smack dab between Flanders (Dutch) and Wallonia (French) - as a result the signs are often in both languages. Brussels is often called one of the capitals of the European Union too and for that reason I suspect my entry showed me lots of embassies.
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My indoor lodging the next two nights is a “shared room” stay in Airbnb so I am paying for a room in someone’s house. Since checkin isn’t till 7 once they get home from work I spent the majority of the afternoon and evening sightseeing and eating some snack foods.
The first game I played is “guess that embassy”.
Finally for dinner, I had some middle eastern food because that’s what sounded good.
Tomorrow will be a rest day spent exploring a bit of Brussels and then some downtime before commencing the final leg of the trip!
Today's ride: 73 km (45 miles)
Total: 1,455 km (904 miles)
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4 months ago
Too busy drinking tea and what not
4 months ago