Another sunny, easy, lovely day, trundling the quiet lanes and bike paths of southern Wallonia, and ending up at a place called Soup.
It was straight-up freezing cold when I left my room in Beauraing at half seven this morning. I always wondered what chilblains were when my grandparents talked about them sixty years ago. Now I know.
Despite the nip, it was good cycling on very quiet roads through even quieter farmland and villages. I found a boulangerie open for a coffee and pastry or two. That’s always one of the highlights of cycling in France and Belgium: all you have to do to find one is look out for the locals walking home with a baguette tucked under their arm, and locate the shop itself by the queue of other locals sticking out into the street.
Passing the villages of Wellin and Gedinne, which sounded like rallying cries of a 1980s college rugby team, I got to a decent RaVEL railtrail which ran alongside a small river for a few miles.
Then it was a few miles of just slightly tedious headwinds and upsy-downsy countryside hills before the long descent to Bouillon, a lively and touristy village on one of the many picturesque bends of the sharply-valleyed Semois river.
I stayed at the HI place overlooking the centre, which must be one of the finest views from a hostel in all of Europe.
The village’s name means ‘soup’, though I didn’t have any (to add to my series of food-in-the-place meals, such as stilton in Stilton, scones in Scone, etc).
I did however have a nice little picnic down by the river, gratefully in the shade and out of the hot sun. A small bottle or two of potent Belgian beer may have been involved too. Who needs soup on a hot day, anyway?
Miles today: 37
Miles since Essen: 169