Days 9&10, 27 5 2011, Brussels to Vollezele

Brussels gets a bad rap from a lot of travel writers, who are inclined to write it off.  However, it is as pleasant as most old European cities, with the same sorts of attractions.  We thoroughly enjoyed the city, and spent too much time in cafes drinking coffee, eating patisseries and solving the world’s problems.

Brussels has been in the grip of a terrible drought for the last few weeks, but it was forecast to rain yesterday and today.

We stayed a day longer than we had intended to avoid the bad weather, but misjudged the situation.  It was drizzling this morning, so we delayed our start to around 11.30, and then got going.  Shortly after we were in cold penetrating drizzle, that lasted for a few hours.

We used TomTom to get out of the city, and this worked well, although we were not on dedicated bikes paths.

Our intention is to ride the Vlaanderen Fietsroute.  This is a bicycle route that more or less encompasses Flanders.  We made this decision last night as the weather in Scotland is still not good, so we have the time to do a bit of a tour before catching a ferry from Zeebrugge to Hull.

We rode to Waterloo, passing the battle site, although we were unaware of this, and then used TomTom to get to Halle, where we intercepted the LF6.

This route wanders all over the place, but is exceptionally picturesque.

Around 5.00pm we saw a B&B by the road side, but we decided to ride on as the country was so pretty and the day was brightening up.

That was the last roadside accommodation was saw.  Around 7.00 after a beautiful evening’s ride we came into the village of Vollezele, where we were bailed up by some of the locals who were well into a good night of drinking in the local pub.  They questioned us about our intentions and we said we were looking for accommodation.  One of them gave us directions to a local B&B.  We thought they might be teasing, but also thought it was worth a try.  Following their instructions we passed a supermarket, so decided to buy some food for dinner, as the B&B is out of town.

Their instructions were exactly correct, and we got a room at the B&B.  This place is a bit special.  When I walked into book a room, I thought there was no way this was going to cost just 70E, and I was right.  It is expensive, too expensive to own up to, but quite gorgeous.  It is a restored farm house, done in exquisite taste, and set amongst beautiful gardens.

We only rode 83km after a late start, and a longish stop to warm up and get out of the rain. My bike is transformed after the work in Brussels, so I have added the shop to our links list.

Another good day, where our luck again held firm.

I do not understand why it is that Google chooses to shrink our GPS track to a dot, sometimes.  Zoom in for a look at the track.

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