2023 European trip France / Belgium / Luxembourg / Germany

[O.C.]

Excellent as usual      

[Rynglieder]

Excellent as usual      

Thank you.

Nearaly there now 

[Rynglieder]

Day 9 Kopstal [L] > Ronq [F] (c.210 miles)

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Breakfast in Kopstal was a bit of a poor affair, something had been plated up the evening before and left in the fridge overnight. I had a bit of a pick at what was there and a couple of cups of tea and was then ready to get away. At least the forecast was for a dry day, although yet again uncomfortably hot. Today's ride way to take me to within striking distance of the channel ports and much like the previous day I was expecting a period of good riding and sight-seeing sandwiched between stints on the motorways so as to cover some distance.

About 10 minutes after plucking out my trusty rag and wiping the dew of the screen, seat and camera lens I had passed through a little bit of the Luxembourg countryside and joined the A6, bound in the direction of Arlon. It was a bog-standard continental motorway ride and passed fairly rapidly by, the Belgian border with Luxembourg was passed within a matter of minutes. The first scheduled stop for the day was to be in the French town of Givet and I was slightly disconcerted by the Zumo directing me past the signposted turning. I assumed it must have some sort of plan, but with a service area coming up soon afterwards it seemed sensible to pull over, have a coffee and check the map.

Having decided to ignore the Zumo for a while I left the motorway almost as soon as I had resumed my journey, making my way though the Ardennes countryside via Houyet and around Beauraing. I was soon crossing the border into France once more and after carefully navigating the outskirts of Givet I crossed the River Meuse again, the Fort of Charlemont being very conspicuous sat atop the hill on the opposite bank.
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It seemed to be prudent to follow the tourist signs for the citadel rather than the Satnav and it was easy enough to follow the route out of the town centre, winding up the hill and after being held for a short while by a traffic light system, through the narrow gate into the fort itself. The bike was secured on a quiet car park, the jacket shrugged off again and I set about trying to find out which direction I should be going in.

There were no signs directing the visitor to a ticket office and I seemed to have wandered around part of the complex unchallenged for quite a while before I decided to head back to the café I had passed near the entrance to make enquiries. A lady behind the bar explained that visitors could wander freely around the first part of the citadel but there was a charge to enter the more impressive parts further down where view of the Meuse Valley and town could be had. There was the option of buying a ticket there at the bar or from a kiosk further down.

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I spent almost two hours around the Fort de Charlemont and really enjoyed the structures, exhibitions and panoramas. Once I had had my fill of walking, I headed back to the café, picked up a cold bottle to take to a shady spot and then resumed my journey. Before leaving Givet I took the trouble to find a spot by the riverside and capture a photo back toward the citadel on the opposite bank.

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[Rynglieder]

Now it was time to turn north. I was so tempted to just pick up the road that follow the loops and curves of the Meuse on its west bank but I also wanted to visit the Rocher Bayard which lies on the east bank. I decided to let the Zumo chose and ended up to the east, but I'm going to make sure that I take the run along the river on some future day. Five minutes out of Givet and I was back in Belgium again, I've no complaints about the road that I took - there is no bad countryside in this region, I was simply running the ridge line of the hills amongst the wind turbines rather than the valley floor. I dropped back down to the riverside at Anseremme and the I followed the river for a short while before spotting a parking opportunity at my objective.

The Rocher Bayard is a rock outcrop along the banks of the Meuse, a tall spike of rock has cleaved the road I two with one carriageway going through the narrow gap between spike and cliff and the other side going around the spike, hugging the river.  I stopped to take a photo and being content in my surroundings decided to procure a Jupiler Zero from the adjacent café. Still feeling totally relaxed and not wanting to break the moment I demanded an encore.

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I was going to have to move on sooner or later, so I weighed anchor and carried on north along the river, slowly passing through Dinant (another of my favourites) and switching to the west bank where a road that I have travelled so many times eventually brought me to the small but busy city of Namur. Now, I've probably ascended the winding cobbled roads that lead to the citadel at Namur maybe a dozen times before, but I can never resist it. On a clear day like today the prospects down to the river are worth the detour and knowing that the remainder of the day before me was going to be motorway riding, I felt entitled to another stop. Since I was last up there sever information boards have been erected telling the story of the citadel's place in history as a motocross venue between 1947 and 2007. Eventually it fell victim to health and safety / cost problems and the sport ceased – something I had never been aware of before.

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Leaving the citadel and descending into the town I picked my way through the heavy traffic. Once more the Zumo had a little gift for me, directing me into a lane to turn left. It did seem to be broadly the right direction for leaving town, but just as I had committed myself, I noticed that the right -hand lane was actually signposted for the direction I wanted. Sure enough after waiting at the traffic lights for several minutes as the cycle only allowed two vehicles over at a time, I realised the other lane was swinging round 270 degrees via an underpass that allowed vehicles to make the left turn seamlessly. The Zumo with its limited intelligence had spotted and opportunity to knock 200m of my trip regardless of adding 10 minutes to my ride.

Once out of Namur I joined the motorway network and spent the remainder of the afternoon trudging along past Charleroi, Mons and Tournai. This part of the trip should have been achieved in around two hours but was probably an hour longer due to a serious accident along the motorway. I crawled along with the traffic flow, still uncomfortable with filtering on something of the bulk of the GTR. At one point a friendly native wound down his window: "English? You can ride down the middle you know; the Germans do!") To be fair I'd have probably accomplished it quite safely, the Belgians, even with their tendency to tail-gate at high speed do seem reasonably aware and considerate of bikes in congestion. After the passage of what seemed eternity, I squeezed past the squashed cars and vehicles with flashing blue lights and eventually passed once more into France, just north of Lille.

I sort of found my hotel OK on an edge of town industrial park. A "Premiere Classe" and "Kyriad" turned out to share the same carpark and inevitably in a tired state I picked the wrong reception. Once I'd actually found the right place and secured my key, I found my room to be on the second floor of a motel style building with all of the rooms off external balconies. The room was uninspiring but functional and at least I could wash off the motorway sweat and get some clean clothes on. I was now feeling much better and ready to find something to eat and drink but it turned out There was nothing on offer. An enquiry to the receptionist was met with the name of the nearest bar, but once back outside and I fed it into Google maps it turned out to be a 30-minute walk away. In desperation I tried the Total filling station but they must have just shut up shop – I could see staff restocking shelves but the doors were locked and the forecourt lights were out. The only sustenance that evening was from a couple of mugs of tea (at least there was a kettle etc. provided) and the remainder on any snacks lurking the bottom of the bike's case.

Generally, I prefer to book a hotel in a small town where there may be multiple options for an evening, I don't recall why I broke my own rule here – maybe it was a price or availability thing – but I could have done better. It is OK for somewhere to shower and sleep but if you ever decide to stay, take some sandwiches. Another chapter from the paperback and another early night ready for the push home tomorrow...

[O.C.]

    

[Boomer]

I love that part of the Ardennes. Dinant is a strange town but quite scenic.
I used to race MX for KTM at Namur and didn't know they had stopped racing there.
It was a challenging track with lots of trees and hard unforgiving walls.

For the future the best route from Luxembourg to Givet is to come off the motorway just after Arlon and then follow the N83 to Bouillon, then follow the Semois river until it feeds into the Meuse, then up the Meuse to Givet. Nice empty twisties (except at weekends) and glorious scenery from Bouillon to Givet.

[Rynglieder]

Sorry its taken so long to finish this, but a conclusion at last...

Day 10 Ronq > Home (c. 330 miles)

The environs of Lille-Ronq had no hold over me, so as soon as I could pick over a bit of breakfast I loaded up as quickly as possible and rolled out through the car park exit.

My crossing back over the channel was no scheduled until 14:00 so I had most of the morning at my disposal and there was one final visit in mind before leaving France. To be on the safe side I took the motorway out toward the coast thinking that I should get the bulk of the riding out of the way in case of unexpected delays. I left the A16 very close to the same junction that I would have for the ferry port, but instead followed the Zumo's directions to the town of Gravellines.

I'd noted in planning that this was another star-shaped town surrounded by moats so it was on the agenda for a good walking around for however much time I had left at hand before I needed to be at the port, only ten minutes to the north.

Gravellines was quite enjoyable for a visit of a couple of hours. I suspect it is one of those towns that my fellow Brits just speed past either on their way to the prettier bits of France or rush by to get their ferry home. It was pleasant to settle in the town square with a drink before walking out to the ramparts and following them round for about half a lap of the town. Much of my walk was alongside the water of the moats, but from time to time took me through some wooded areas which provided some shade. It was still hot even on this final day and it was looking like I was not going to miss the old Weisse biking trousers.

After a last sit-down in the square, I rode up to the port, checked in smoothly and joined my allocated queue. Only one other bike was waiting, some sort of "custom" machine ridden by a lady from the Netherlands I who I passed the waiting time with, mostly in a "who's got the sweatiest tee-shirt" contest. We were pretty much first on and after a smooth crossing first off, which was a nice change.

Back on the left-hand side of the road, I endured a 200-mile ride back along the motorways broken with two or three stops and arrived home in the late evening with no daylight left to unload the bike and get it secured in the garage.

Overall, this year's trip had been pretty good even given a couple of disappointing half day sessions where I had been hindered by speed restrictions, access restrictions or got engaged in a couple of urban areas that I came to regret. Once again it had been uncomfortably hot for the whole time, but I suppose it was better than ten days of rain, there is nothing that can be done about the weather, especially if planning in advance.

I've come away with the memories and as per usual a load of phots (if you want to see more, many are on my Flickr stream, link in my signature strip below) and am already up for the next trip. There'll be something planned out for next spring / summer, hopefully it will start to shape up properly when Christmas is out of the way. Before then I'll be spending a good few hours editing down the video files to that I can relive my journey when I'm ready.

Cheers for reading through.

Pete.

[Rynglieder]

I love that part of the Ardennes. Dinant is a strange town but quite scenic.
I used to race MX for KTM at Namur and didn't know they had stopped racing there.
It was a challenging track with lots of trees and hard unforgiving walls.

For the future the best route from Luxembourg to Givet is to come off the motorway just after Arlon and then follow the N83 to Bouillon, then follow the Semois river until it feeds into the Meuse, then up the Meuse to Givet. Nice empty twisties (except at weekends) and glorious scenery from Bouillon to Givet.

Yes, the Ardennes is a bit of a favourite, I wish I had visited more frequently.

I didn't know you had been into the MX - I was curious about how the course was set out, did it involve all those cobbles up to the citadel?

You're quite correct about the alternative route back, as you know I picked up most of those roads when outbound. On the return journey it was mostly to be a Getting Home day day, so the ride between Givet and Namur was just a little reward to myself to break up the day.

Stay safe.

Pete.

[O.C.]

As I've said previously, I have thoroughly enjoyed your report and superb accompanying photographs, so another BIG thank you for putting this all together and also for sharing it with us all.

I'm looking forward to your next adventure already         

[Boomer]

I didn't know you had been into the MX - I was curious about how the course was set out, did it involve all those cobbles up to the citadel?

No, the start was in the arena section and the track wiggled around that area before a run out into the forest, up and down the hill and back into the arena. MX has to be run on soil so no cobbles, thank god! Muddy tyres on cobbles would be slippery as ****!!!😱