When I did my Belgium Side to Side in 2022 I passed through the country’s central point. Now I’m doing it Top to Bottom, I just had to go through the same point. This made my two routes cross in the most appropriate way, forming a wobbly chromosome-like ‘X’ shape. Well, cycle routes are clearly in my DNA.
Leaving Leuven this chilly, sunny morning was a delight. I was one of hundreds of locals commuting to work, pleasure or university, or some combination, along the excellent bike path network. It’s exhilarating to be part of the rush-hour peloton in a cycling country.
I headed through the town centre, with its sometimes cobbled but very bike-permeable lanes almost free of motor traffic, past the fine historic buildings of the central square, the restaurant-saturated Old Market now quiet after last night’s exuberance, and the tranquil old nuns’ quarter of the Begijnhof. The centre looked good: the road cleaning team had obviously been out in force.
After the university, on the edge of town, the platoons of cyclists on e-bikes, town clunkers and schoolbound cargo bikes thinned out, and I decided to take some quiet tracks through woodland.
The only sound was the chirp of birds, the gentle crunch of chunky tyre on gravel, and the muttering of Remainers complaining to themselves that if it hadn’t been for 23 Jun 2016, I could have easily come to live in Leuven.
The woods tracks became quiet lanes through farmland. And sometimes, without rhyme or reason, the quiet lanes became pavé: that Flemish cycling speciality, the cobbled lane (yes, yes, I know, not technically cobbles but brick setts).
I had to rejog my route a couple of times, preferring to do two miles of nice smooth tarmac over a mile of bumpy, jarring pavé. It may be great fun for the spectators of Paris–Roubaix, but it’s less enjoyable for cycle tourers, even with chunky tyres.
Somewhere along the line I crossed the language border where, in a way amusing to outsiders, you snap from 100% Dutch to 100% French, never the twain, black and white, etc etc. The two entirely separate cultures just seem to pretend the other one doesn’t exist. In Belfast you know instantly from the murals which side of the divide you’re on, but here in Belgium, the boundary wasn’t evident from the lie of the pastureland, or the cut of the cows’ jib.
Only when I rode through a village where all signage, all street furniture, all lost-cat notices, were in French, did I know it was Vaarwel, Vlaanderen and Bonjour, la Wallonie. Or, to really annoy both sides, Au revoir, Flandres, and Hallo, Wallonië.
That said, the first significant thing I came across in Wallonia was respectfully multilingual. The Geographical Centre of Belgium is in Nil-St-Vincent-St-Martin – half village, half football result – which I came through back in 2022. It looked a little more graffitied today, sadly; perhaps culture guerillas irritated by the inclusiveness of the information plaques in Belgium’s three languages of Dutch, French and German.
The country’s triple nature is reflected in the monument marking the centroid, which has three pillars. I placed my front wheel exactly over the central point, knowing I was at the very heart of a hearty country. Which reminded me of lunch. And perhaps, to wash it down, another sort of triple…
But it was too early for beer, and I wanted to get to my destination for the day of Namur. So after some pleasant, quiet, car-free but gradually samey country lanes, following the nodes-and-codes system of Low Countries cycle-routefindings, I decided to take the quick and dirty option instead: the perfectly decent cycle path alongside the main road.
‘Quick and dirty’ took on a rather new meaning as I cycled south from Gembloux on that N4. Sleazy-looking nightclubs were advertising for staff. They had large neon signs that would be turned on later. Er, like their customers, I suppose.
At a bar called, eek, ‘La Lolita’, scantily-clad young women with little-girl hairstyles posed in windows. I stopped at a petrol station shop to sit down at its picnic table with a can of cold drink. Oh: opposite was another shop-window with two scantily-clad young ladies beckoning me with playful smiles. And I don’t think it was because they were intrigued by my Dahon’s three-speed SRAM hub combination with the seven-speed derailleurs. (This one was ‘Amazon Bar’. Hmm. I know you can get cheap stuff delivered quick on Amazon, but this was not what I was after.)
Crikey. It was like Amsterdam’s red light district, but less classy. Oh well. Of interest to some of the lorry drivers and commercial travellers bored from the straight fast road perhaps, but not me. I returned their smiles, waved, finished my Dr Pepper, and rode on to Namur.
Last time I came through Namur in 2022 it seemed mostly industrial or drab, but this time, with a more leisurely agenda thanks to having a room booked at the hostel, I could explore it a bit more. It indeed has pleasant pedestrian areas and well-patronised, lively pavement cafes and squares, which I didn’t find then. I found them now.
Getting to the hostel was the pleasant matter of following the car-free path along the Meuse a mile or two south of the centre. The hostel was super, with a fine riverside position. The only downside was the noise of all the motorboat engines all night. Or perhaps it was the dorm snorers. At least I know it certainly wasn’t me snoring. I was awake most of the night.
Miles today: 42
Miles since Essen: 97