I’ve cycled in a lot of places with silly names. Dull, twinned with Boring. Jump. Bedlam. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, etc. But I’d never been to Silly itself, a small Belgian town southwest of Brussels. Today I took the very sensible decision to visit as I passed en route to Paris.
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Silly has a population of 8,500, and a pleasing list of facilities.
A Silly train station. A Silly town hall. A Silly police station. A Silly church. A Silly school. A Silly Tourist Information, which unfortunately was closed when I was there. I wanted to ask if they had a leaflet on Silly Walks.
It’s a cultural place. What sort of works get an airing at the annual Silly Music Festival, I wonder?
And there’s a Silly Brewery, right there in the centre of town, opposite the Taverne de la Sille.
(The name of the pub and of the town comes from a nearby watercourse, the Sille.)
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Well, I had to have a Silly Beer there, didn’t I? And very good it was too: a Silly Triple Bio, 9%, nutty and balanced and sweet, only one of which applies to me. And the taverne, I can report, was a friendly and sociable place, full of chatty locals.
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Silly is a fairly unremarkable town apart from its name, but the area is pushing itself as a tourist destination with plenty of cycling and walking routes around the very gentle surrounding countryside.
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Very sensible.
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The only downside was that my expected train out of the place never arrived. With no information boards at the unstaffed station, and no internet access, I had to pace the platform for an hour hoping the next service would turn up in time to get me to Lille, my destination tonight.
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It did, but until it did, you can guess how I felt…
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