Belgium and Luxembourg Tour, August 1980
French ferry strike during August. Went with Andy to Ostend on the afternoon ferry from Dover. This is the first time I’ve travelled across the Channel during daytime and the first time with Andy. Left Holmes Chapel at 07.24, Crewe at 07.55 and we arrived in London Euston at 10.06 then biked along Marylebone Road, Portland Place, Oxford Circus and took a look in the Scripture Union bookshop in Wigmore Street nearby. Andy bought a few things, on along Oxford Street, past Marble Arch to Speakers Corner and stood listening for a while. One man on a box was talking about Confucius but he was difficult to understand – confusing Confucius. Another man was quite interesting but should we really question the man who says he has a faith and to examine what is good and bad in all beliefs? Does our own limited and corrupted human consciousness tell us what should be right or wrong in all beliefs? Jesus said ‘I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father except through Me’. On past Hyde Park Corner which was very busy as usual, so was the Park Lane turn around to come back along the dual carriageway. From there to Piccadilly, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, Charing Cross and the Strand. The cafés were too expensive or open only for breakfast or closed for lunch! In Villiers Street alongside Charing Cross station Andy stopped to look at antiques. I noticed a new shop by the underground station – a stamp shop. I must have a look in there sometime. Along Victoria Street to Victoria Station where we registered the bikes at 11.15. this cost us £2.30 for both of them and we stood watching them being placed into the guards van. I queued up for a long time for my port tax tickets in the new Sealink travel centre on platform 1. These were £1.50 for the return trip but it did ensure a place on the ferry out and return. We went straight on to the train and sat by a nun! The train left for Dover at 13.00. Andy had his booklets that he bought from the Scripture Union bookshop earlier and he was wearing a ‘Jesus’ badge that the young nun couldn’t fail to notice and smiled at him. Andy and I fooled around for a bit but then orange juice from his bottle started to drip on the nun’s head and down her habit. I quickly removed our bags from the rack above her head and conversation opened about religion, travel, and her reason for visiting England and where we were travelling. She told us of her home in Sinabelkirchen near Graz, Austria. She was very interesting to chat with and not as I imagined my impression of a nun should be. We talked a great deal and it seemed a very quick journey to Dover. We exchanged sandwiches, our curly ones for her freshly bought ones – well, just one! She wanted to pass on her address to us and asked if we would write to her to let her know how our cycling holiday in Belgium went. We promised we would and we sent a post card from Belgium later in the week. We arrived in Ostend at 20.00 and it was a long walk from the ferry to through the customs. The bags appeared on a moving chute and we passed through customs twice. We were reunited with our bikes after a ½ hour wait. It took us 3 hours cycling around Ostend before we found the youth hostel. We were getting frantic and finally found it at 22.56, 4 minutes before closing for the night. We put the bikes inside.
We were up the next morning at 07.30 to egg and bread with honey. The hostel and breakfast cost us 175 Belgian Francs each. We left the hostel at 10.45 after writing cards to Mum and Dad, Bert and Bess Shepherd and Marilyn. The weather was very good and we set off along the first stage of our trip along a cycle path to Brugge. We had a meal there, about £4.00 each that was expensive and not enough on the plate. The Festival of the Baron was happening in Brugge that day and only happens every 10 years. We were there at 12.00 noon but it wasn’t due to start until 16.30 that day and we wanted to get on to Brussels. We had a look around the town and its canals. Andy tried to phone his mother (or ‘Big Bertha’ as he fondly calls her) but we didn’t know the STD for Holmes Chapel. We cycled on to Gent and joined with a cycling team called ‘Stay Young’. We felt thoroughly old and shattered when we arrived in Gent trying to keep up with them and eventually reaching the point when it was enough to have them way out in front trying to keep pace with them as best as we could but of course they disappeared on the horizon. We wandered around Gent’s cobbled streets and had a meal in town, spicy hamburgers. When we left town we took the road for Aalst and ended up in a long street where a festival was taking place. We found it a bit tiring the last few miles into Brussels. Eventually we found the youth hostel, it wasn’t too difficult certainly not as difficult as trying to find the hostel in Ostend. The first hostel was dirty but the second one in Poststraat was all right. We met up with an Australian girl and we all walked around town at the Gare d’Nord area. We had a few drinks and sausage and chips in a café. When we got back to the hostel later we talked with others in the lounge before bed at 23.30
Breakfast was the unexciting bread and jam with coffee in very large round cups that made it go cold quick. Not appetising but full, the stodge would keep us going for a couple of hours. We found out in the morning that all those green shutters on the road opposite the hostel weren’t just shutters for security but at night they come down and ‘ladies’ sit in the windows bathed in red light advertising all that you can see, most times that was a lot. Andy and I didn’t see it but were oblivious to it as we were walking back to the hostel last night but then we had pleasant company that had our attention. We cycled out this morning through busy streets, mucky and hot for about 6 miles and eventually to the edge of Brussels. We stopped at a small shop to buy Mars bars, which were a bit of a rip off at 8 Belgian Francs each, and small bars at that. Never buy English chocolate abroad! Onwards towards Waterloo. Through the town we were disappointed not to find something of interest relating to the famous battle but further on, towards Charleroi we met our Waterloo! This was the real one; the white lion monument stands on top of an artificial mound that we could walk up to. We took our time and had an hour and a half there. We had a meal at a café, omelette, chips and cups of tea then headed for the lion monument. As soon as it was found out we were English we were invited to visit it for free. After all, the ticket man said if it wasn’t for the English there would be no Waterloo and he wouldn’t have this job! The museum did cost, though. That was 20 Belgian Francs. I wrote a post card at the café and posted it to Marilyn. We were back on to the road at 14.30 and found the N49 for Namur and the start of some hills at last. The whole distance from Ostend on the coast to this point was almost flat and was becoming monotonous. Andy almost got beat up by a motorist who couldn’t overtake us because we were cycling together blocking the road. He must have had an argument with his girlfriend! Andy later had trouble with wheel spokes and took time to adjust them and it was becoming increasingly obvious that Hans Sur Ley youth hostel couldn’t be reached this evening. We stopped again for a drink about 15 miles before Namur. On reaching Namur we decided to stop. I wasn’t keen because it was still mid afternoon but I was glad we did when we sampled the delights of the hostel in the town. It was really good food, as much as we could eat. The wardens were friendly and the beds were comfortable. Supper consisted of vegetable soup, two lots of meat on serving plates, jacket potatoes, and hot apple crumble with custard. We had a look around Namur that evening, wandered along the River Meuse, the park by the river, under the citadel and to l’Gare
Breakfast was just as good. There was corn flakes, yogurt, fresh bread rolls with butter, cheese, jam and expresso coffee. We cycled out at 10.15 to Dinant along the river and south from Namur. It is mainly flat but there are a few hills on the left hand side of the river (east). We headed south on a minor road past a huge granite quarry. There was much housing construction going on, I could see that they were being built with a double layer of breezeblock but no external bricks. Into Dinant and a look around the small abbey and a bigger church in the town. I loaded a new camera film. We had a meal of trout and chips with salad. The trout was brownish and complete with head and tail. It’s one upper beady eye staring back at me. I had to part the head or there was no way I could eat this! It was also very bony, not a good choice of meal. After Dinant (and dinner) we climbed up out of the town on the road to Sedan and turned off the N40 for direction Neufchateau. We met up with a young couple from Brussels climbing the rise here and we overtook them. Andy wanted to look around the war graveyard and a bit further on the couple had stopped along the road to take a photo. We thought they were in trouble at first so turned back but then we saw all was all right so we carried on. Later on we stopped again and they caught us up. We decided to ride along with them. Andy soon lagged behind to chat with the girl, not really surprised as she was wearing a tight top and skimpy figure hugging red shorts! She had trouble with her gears and Andy put them right at no extra charge except for her company. She said to him that he was nice but her boyfriend was a pig because he never stopped to help! We talked a lot and shared our food but they were keen to leave us when we reached Rochefort. In Rochefort we stopped for tea and I tried to get money from a cash dispenser ‘hole in the wall’ at the post office with my Access card but it wasn’t possible. The banks in the small town were already closed. On to St Hubert, a dusty place. We stopped at the bottom of a hill below the turning for the town and ate the last of our biscuits. Later we stopped the other side of the town and ate oranges then climbed out on a steady rise through the woody Ardennes. The hilly country was the highest yet. We passed an outside toilet complete with occupant in full flow giving us a demonstration. On and up through the forest on minor roads to Bastogne. The last few miles the climb had levelled off and the going was quite easy. We found the hostel without much trouble but we couldn’t get in because it was completely full for the night. We went a bit further and called at the first hotel we saw. Bed and breakfast was 880 Belgian Francs for the two of us. We had a meal that evening with Andy’s English money as we were clean out of Belgian Francs and I desperately needed to draw some more with my card tomorrow. The meal cost us £4.00 each for beef and chips. We had to leave our passports at the hotel that evening as we had no Belgian Francs and the owner wanted to protect his interests! We locked our bikes up in the hotel garage at the rear of the building. We went for a drink at the pub before bed at 23.00
Up at 08.30 and I made the bank my first activity of the day. However I still couldn’t draw money on my Access card but Andy was able to change a traveller’s cheque and paid the hotel bill. We then sat down for breakfast. We were away at 10.15 heading towards Clervaux and abbey in Luxembourg. We sent Petra a post card and had a look around the abbey. Down to the town we passed through and on to the German border at Dasburg. We rode over the bridge three times in the hope that we would be asked for our passports but the German customs officials leaned on the bridge looking at us cycling back and to. We asked them if we could take a photo of them but they declined. We cycled up hill towards Prum but we were on the wrong road. We asked a lady the way to the road that follows the river and we were directed back through Dasburg. This delayed us by more than an hour. We followed the road along the Luxembourg side of the border to Vianden hydroelectric works where we stopped for chips and mayonnaise (30 Belgian Francs each). There were grand views of the river and the valley as we cycled on to Ettelbruck, had a look around the church and continued along flat countryside for a few miles then a few ups and downs into Luxembourg city. The hostel was signposted off the same road and we found it without any difficulty.
We had a lazy day around Luxembourg City and boarded a train in the afternoon back to Namur. When we arrived at Namur hostel again I unloaded my bike around the back and had a mini seizure. I had lost my camera. Andy was surprised that I was so short tempered about it but it was all those photos I had taken from Ostend to Luxembourg. I used a whole roll of film and no photos to remember the trip by.
Andy’s plight was a lot worse than mine though as he lost his bike in London when he propped up by a shop. He was only in there a few minutes and had even locked it up but that didn’t deter a quick thief. He said afterwards it was probably judgement on him for taking some bullets from the museum to the Battle of the Bulge at Bastogne. That evening in Namur hostel the Australian warden persuaded a French girl to ring up Luxembourg hostel to ask about the camera. They said they had a camera but it was smashed, I don’t know, maybe, but it could have been picked up.
It was a wet day at Namur and it was a good thing we had ample dinner the lat evening and a filling breakfast today, we needed it. We wandered around Namur and also around the castle. The catacombs below the castle were very interesting. Later on in the day we boarded a direct train for Ostend via Brussels with the bikes and the ferry across to Dover and eventually home. I left Andy in London and I went for the next train from Euston but Andy wanted to see a bit of London before going home.