A short, bright, breezy day of headwinds and towpaths. Not the narrow, lumpy, muddy tracks typically accompanying a British canal, though: here, a ‘towpath’ is a jaagpad, a wide, smooth, tarmac service road on which motor vehicles are as common as Belgian downhill skiers.
With plenty of time in hand, I could dawdle round Antwerp in the morning, exploring its excellent cycle network. I crossed underneath the Scheldt via the Sint-Annatunnel, a bikes’n’peds historical gem. Built in 1933 to connect the city centre with the newer developments across the water, it has grand wooden escalators to take you and bike down to and up from the 570-metre tunnel itself. There are also lifts – handy for the many cargo bike riders shuttling kids, dogs and freight.
The tunnel was packed – it was rush hour – and I desisted from trying out the bathroom-tiles acoustic with a quick rendition of Nessun’ dorma.
I cycled south on the sunny western side of the river, and crossed back to Antwerp by the Kennedytunnel. It’s a dreary 1970s motorway-ring-road thoroughfare, but also has a completely separate tunnel for cyclists and pedestrians.
Back in the centre, I breakfasted on coffee and pastries at one of the many lively pavement cafes. Antwerp is a city I’d happily live in if I had a job, ambition, and citizenship of an EU country. But as three almost zeros multiplied together is even almoster zero, there seems little probability of that.
By the busy eastern entrance of the Sintanna I was pleased to see a bar decorated with the figure of a cyclist. The 2025 Tour de France will begin here in Antwerp in July, and a notice informs the cyclists that Parijs is nog ver – ‘Paris is still a long way’.
I headed out of Antwerp along another car- and stress-free F-route through suburbs and towns, alongside railways, and past the odd nature reserve, to Mechelen.
Its fine historic central square was the ideal place for lunch. So of course somehow I managed to eat mine in a bus shelter by a humdrum lock on the canal on the edge of town instead.
The breeze had picked up and I was forcing my way along into a headwind, but it wasn’t far along the pleasant towpath/jaagpad to Leuven, a studenty, historic, lovely town full of little uplifts.
First I went past the Stella factory. Yes, the Belgian brand that was heavily marketed in the 1970s British lager boom as ‘reassuringly expensive’. I worked behind the bar at my local pub in 1979, and if a confident young bloke got out of a Triumph Stag outside, turned off his 8-track stereo, and swaggered in smelling of Aramis, you had the pint of Stella ready and waiting for him.
Second was an underpass mural which celebrated cycling, a Belgian speciality. They punch well above their weight in cycle racing, including stars such as Eddy Merckx – the greatest of all time – who is one of the many ‘Famous Belgians’ you can use in pub quizzes. (I think the cyclist in the mural here is local boy Jef Scherens, though there is a Merckx mural elsewhere in Leuven.)
Third was the Oude Markt, claimed as the world’s largest square which consists solely of cafes, pubs and restaurants. There was clearly only one thing possible before retiring to my very pleasant hostel a few minutes’ ride away: have a pint of Stella in the sunshine in amongst the delightful pavement-dining and -drinking vibe. And no matter that I have a folding bike instead of a Triumph Stag, and that I definitely don’t smell of Aramis.
Another super day.
Miles today: 41
Miles since Essen: 55