Day 32: Ghent to Antwerp

September 10, 2024

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We carried our stuff down the twisting staircase at the Flandria, and we lifted our bikes out of the stairwell they were stashed in, load them then in the laneway. We were glad we found the way out not locked, since the hotel was dark and not set to wake up for another hour.

We got set to head down the Shelde once again, getting one last peek at some attractive buildings.

Our hotel may have been asleep, but the school kids and their parents were hot to get to class.

Most everybody is on a bike here. We only saw the occasional lost looking car in motion.

There was a steady stream of cyclists along the street.

At this early hour, almost a thousand cyclists had already passed this point today.

We set off on the Schelde path at last, and sailed along for a brief time. Then we came to the barricade you see below. You also see Dodie sneaking around the side. There is a lady approaching - we asked her if we would be able to pass, and she said yes.

But at the other end we found this. There was no arguing with that thing!

We backtracked and found our way into a cemetary, that we hoped would provide a way out and forward. Meanwhile, it was interesting - as most graves had photos of the residents.

It took quite a bit of noodling around, but we finally did find our way back to the trail. We popped out, mostly by accident, right at the far end of the obstruction.

At quite a few spots beside the trail, sheep were in charge of trimming the grass.

At first we thought they were spotted, but those are burrs - gonna wreck the wool!

There were often wetlands along the way, with info panels promising various sorts of birds. We found some, but not a lot.

One feature of the ride we had not known about or factored in was the trail making multiple crossings of the river, by ferry. The ferries were free, but ran only every 1/2 hour, making for a lot of delay for us.

One crossing was over a lock, which was ok, once we discovered where to cross.

It seemed at first that we would have to use these stairs.

The actual Schelde route passed directly by no retail of any kind, and had only a few towns sort of nearby. Normally we were just by the river. The "town" below was so novel, we took its picture!

The ramps up from the ferry landings were quite steep for pushing a heavy bike.

As will be explained in a special section below, our ride spun out to over 90 km, but eventually we were approaching Antwerp. Something we did not know (though Suzanne Gibson was here some years ago) was that you need to go into a tunnel under the river to get to downtown. To get into the first tunnel we came to, it was a matter of descending an insanely long and steep stairway, with a bike wheel ramp hard up against the side. No way we could do that! There was a small elevator though - out of order!

We backed out of the tunnel thing and carried on, but it seemed like tunnels are the way. So we pulled in at the Saint Anna tunnel. Here there were not stairs, but a mean looking escalator. We balked again. A man behind us said it was simple - you go on the escalator and turn your wheel sideways, to avoid shooting to the bottom. No way, even I was not having it!

But we found that this did have a working elevator. Here we are below, lining up for it.

The guy with the cargo bike has another bike as cargo.

The elevator descends to 31 meters below the river. For reference, the depth limit for typical SCUBA diving is 40 meters. We were down there!

People exit the escalator as we prepare to enter the tunnel (I think).

The photo record of entering Antwerp ends here, because my second camera decided to die, with the lens covering vanes jammed. There was not much more to our journey, though. We entered a large square surrounded by beautiful buildings (the Grote Market) and made our way to the cathedral. Our "hotel", called the Mezonvin, is right beside the cathedral. Tomorrow we will be able to tour around a bit, and have a photo record of what we see.

The day wasn't over yet, though, because we found ourselves standing in front of this Mezonvin with its door locked. Of course! We phoned the contact number with our UK phone, and the call would not go through! Fortunately we do have mobile data, so I called with Skype. We got the lady, who gabbled the door code unintelligibly at first. Once the door was open, there were further instructions about where our room key was, and where the room was, and where the bikes could go. The bike room turned out to be locked, so scratch that. Not to mention the room was up two staircases much more like steep ladders, and it had no towels. I hope I am not sounding too crabby about the Belgian hotel adventure!

Bonus Section I - Birds of the Schelde wetlands.

We really did not see a lot of noteworthy birds, and certainly not the great ones shown on some of the trailside info panels. But there were a few, including two that were new to us:

Bonus Section II - How did the Grampies turn a 55 km ride into a 95 km slog?

A lot of the great bikeways in Europe are river routes - like the Rhine radweg or the Via Rhona. And generally these are a good way to go. Towns like to be on rivers, and so the river route is sort of logical for going town to town. The river paths, to boot, are car free, and there are lots of maps and tracks out there for river routes. But today, all these factors fell apart. The Schelde wiggled and wandered its way from Ghent to Antwerp in almost twice the distance of perfectly good bike routes, such as might be offered by RWGPS, or in the example below, Geovelo.fr

Had the Grampies bothered to check, they could have been on the orange arrows, and not the wiggly green!

Today's ride: 95 km (59 miles)
Total: 1,427 km (886 miles)

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John FlecknerThanks as always for the bird photos. Every day a new adventure, or misadventure.
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3 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo John FlecknerEven with the (almost daily) misadventures we are still having great fun.
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3 months ago

Karen PoretDon’t forget to get the chocolates at G. Bastin in Antwerp! Worth the calories!
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3 months ago