Skip to main content

Stage 21 - Arlon to Luxembourg City 37km (22-Jul-2019)


Early start to take the train from Bruges to Arlon (more about that later), mind you we took our time with the breakie. Anyway, we got to the station with half an hour to spare before the arrival of our train. Why Arlon, you may ask? We always planned to visit Luxembourg and spent a long time to figure out how to fit it into our schedule and in the end it made the most sense to catch a train from Bruges to Arlon which is pretty close to the Luxembourg border. So there we were at the station on a public holiday in Belgium on a beautiful day. Must admit the weather has been very kind to us.


Overall, Belgium has surprised us, especially the people were very friendly and kind, the towns of Ghent and Bruges and the cycling infrastructure. 
We had one change of trains in Brussels Sud and weren't impressed when we learnt that there was no lift to get us and our bikes to the platform. So moi had to walk the bikes loaded with panniers, down and then up to the new platform. Anyway, 4 hours later we were in Arlon, by now, it was seriously warm. Out came the Garmin, loaded the route to Luxembourg city created by my mate, Ellwood and we were off with little expectations of the ride. Disappointed we were not; we were rapt. It was a beautiful route on fantastic bike paths through forests and fields, a tad more up and down than we had experienced to date as our bodies reminded us. Furthermore, we made more use of the low gears on our bikes today on this short route than we did in total over the last 6 weeks.






First impression of Luxembourg was, how clean it is and this playground, check it out below. Wish I was kid again. 


Luxembourg also reminds us of Switzerland not just because of the hills but also because of flowers in pots and gorgeous landscapes.






Moving along we finally got to our accommodation, another Airbnb hosted by Jeanine, a lovely lady, originally from France. Got great views from her apartment, check out this sunset.


It had been a long day, so we decided to stay indoors for dinner; a delicious tuna salad made by Ursi. Happy days.
No blog tomorrow. The next blog, our last of the tour will be published the day after tomorrow, Wednesday.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Stage 22 - Schengen to Wasserbillig via Trier 70km (24-Jul-2019)

All good things come to an end (more about that later). Today's stage along the River Moselle was a late addition into our itinerary; more opportunistic than anything else. We decided to spend a couple of days in Luxembourg, 1 day visiting Luxembourg city, (which is one big construction site at the moment) which we did yesterday and 1 day to ride somewhere, which is what we did today on a seriously hot day with the temperatures hitting 38deg. Early start to catch the 9.05am bus to Schengen, where the treaty to open up the European borders was signed, yes, local buses to take bikes. Un loaded our bikes on arrival at Schengen and made our way a few 100 meters to the magnificent bike path on the Luxembourg bank of River Moselle; the other bank is Germany, to the town of Trier (Karl Marx's birthplace) in Germany. Must admit the river appeared a tad untidy but the landscape of vineyards were breath taking. Stopped a few time to take some photos of birdlife, towns an...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rest day in Bruges - Damme

It's called a rest day but in reality it isn't. From time to time we take a day off the tour to discover a town and surroundings and on this occasion, that is exactly what we did. Early breakie of muesli, greek yoghurt and milk and we were good to go by 9.30am on our bikes. Making our way through the town on cobbled stone roads (not the most comfortable way to ride a bike) to the railway station, noticed how deserted the town looked compared to yesterday. Stopped a few times as you do to take these photos. Slowly made our way to the station to buy tickets for tomorrow's 4 hour train ride to Aarlon for the short 36km ride from there to Luxembourg, our final destination where we are planning to spend 3 mights before making our way by public transport to Zurich. To date, we have ridden 1,541km (including today's rides) with one short stage to go from Aarlon to Luxembourg and a planned 70km on one of our rest days in Luxembourg. Back to today, Be...
Post a Comment
Read more

Beechworth Rest Day (17-Mar-2021)

Last night, we stayed in for dinner comprising of a meat pie from the famous Beechworth Bakery and 3 different fresh salads bought from a local store and it was early to bed. After a good nights sleep, what was meant to be a rest day ended up us going for a 8.5km walk around the Beechworth Gorge on another beautiful day. Well worth it. The end of the walk led us straight to the bakery for a morning cappuccino/chai latte including the famous Beesting (pastry) shared of course.  The rest of the day was spent on much needed relaxation and a little bit of tinkering by me on the bikes in readiness for tomorrow’s last stage to Bright.
Post a Comment
Read more