Day 5 - Gent to Leuvan

For me its half way through day 6 but I couldnt find an internet cafe yesterday - just like I cant find the apostrophe on this keyboard. Talking of which these keyboards are not QWERTY keyboards they are AZERTY keyboards; and its not just the AZQ&W that have been swapped to get the @ symbol you have to hit Ctrl Alt and 2 - it took me ages to work that out.

Before my ride yesterday I thought I would visit Gents main 2 tourist attractions. The first is '(found it) The adoration of the mystic lamb' being from Wales this sounded interesting. It is, however, a famous Medieval oil painting in the cathedral, unfortunately it was being restored but you could pay 5 Euros to see a replica - I don' think so. The other was to climb the 253 steps of the Belfry which is on the Cloth Hall. This was ticked off the list. Gent is a pretty city but is like a construction site at the moment due to installation of  Tram Lines and more and more of the dreaded 'Pavé'. It seems like all the towns in Flanders are covered with the stuff. It may look pretty but a nightmare to cycle on. Anyhow I wandered back to the Hotel passed those ladies - don't they ever get to go to bed - packed me stuff and headed off at about 11am

The weather was great 22C bright with a few clouds and a good old westerly - absolutly perfect. For the first 15k I sailed along the paths were good and I was going about 30k for alot of it. However for the rest of the day until the last 15k the paths were pretty awful. There are 3 types of path; tamac when besides the road is normally good; then there is concrete slabs, about 12 foot long with an inch gap to the next one and always at a different height - just like a train ride on a bad track; and the last type of main path is the red block paving which can be ok but today was awful, uneven, bits missing etc I spent most of the time just looking at the groung just in front of me. Still it wasn't too long a ride and I arrived in Leuven at 6pm.

For lunch today I stopped in a retaurant had a lovely pasta meal and thought I would treat myself to a pancake, but the waitress said
'we dont serve pancakes until 2pm' the time was 1:30. I looked at her in amazement what kind of place would serve you dinner and then tell you to wait another half an hour for desert.
'you can have ice cream'
'i dont want icecream i want a pancake with jam'
At 1:40 she said 'you can have your pancake now'
And mighty fine it was too! Customer service or what!

Leuven is absolutey lovely - like all Flanders towns it has a magnicent Cloth Hall - the Cloth industry was what made Flanders rich hunderds of years ago. But what is more beauutiful than the city & the beer is the girlies. Leuven has 25000 students and i'm sure all the pretty girls were out last night - shame they were all half my age.

Thanks for all your comments please keep them coming, I can view them on my phone but I cant write the blog on it as memory on my phone is not big enough - or something like that

Today's stats
Distance 94.39k
Climb 321m
Riding time 4:15:36
Average speed 22.1kph
Total time 6:31

Day 4 - Poperinge to Gent

Currently I am in the Tyne Cot cemetery museum, I am the only person here which is quite surprising as it is chucking down outside.  Tyne Cot is the largest Commonwealth Cemetery in the world with about 12000 soldiers buried here.  I will look outside and pay my respects once I finish this.

The day started a muggy cloudy 23C, but is now raining and 17C.  I had a leisurely breakfast chatting to Graham, his father and his father in law, and being thourghly spoilt by Jenny, the warden, who insisted on making me a pot of tea and giving me her jam, cheese etc.

After a quick tour of the The Talbot House Museum I headed to Ypres (Ieper), on the way I visited a few British Cemeteries including the Essex Farm Cemetery where John McCrae wrote "In Flanders Fields". Ypres is a lovely small city which was flattened in the War but has now been completely restored to how it was before. It is where tens of thousands headed to the Western Front, passing through the Menin Gate which now bears the names of 55000 Commonwealth Soldiers who were lost in the trenches and have no graves. From there I headed here and I plan to end up in Gent depending on the weather.

1.30am
I made it to Gent, another 70k of cycling through the rain and into a wind.

In some ways cycling in Belgium is similar to Holland. There are loads of cycle paths, and you must use them when they are there. As I found out if you don´t the car drivers are quick to blow their horn at you, however, in towns {where there are no cycle paths the cars never cut you up}. Loads of people cycle mostly very bably on rickity bikes and no one wears a helmet apart from the roadies.

And in some ways Belgium reminds me of France - in that every shop seems to be shut and the odd cafe or bar that is open will not serve food. I found this today and survived the day on a packet of fig rolls, a coke, a fanta, a waffle, 2 bars of choclate and a coffee - hardly the best diet in the world!

It was 8.30pm when I arrived in Gent and by the time I found a hotel and washed everything {including those underpants} it was 10pm before I wandered into town for a pizza and a couple of beers in Cafe den Turk which is the oldest pub in Gent, and a good one as well. I have just walked back to my hotel in the early hours of the morn and noticed a few pretty young ladies relaxing on sofas in shop windows waving at me. Blimey - I thought they could get in all kinds of trouble dressed like that!!!

I hope to view the real sights of Gent tomorrow before I head to Leuven - the beer capital of Belgium, now there´s a claim.

Today´s stats
Distance 112.75k
Climb 256m i.e. pan flat
Riding time 5:22:37
Average speed 20.90kph
Total time 10:15