Heading out of Belgium through the Somme

Kath enjoying a Kwak from the very odd glass - it falls over without the stand so you have maintain concentration

Sipping a Tripel Karmaliet in Brugge

Two crisp fresh Chimay's and a view over the monk's diary farm - very nice!

Gardens in the Chimay Monastry

Chateau in the Ardenne

Belgium

Next we crossed into Belgium and stayed that night in the lovely forested hills of the Ardennes. The area was full of little towns that nestled in amongst the ridges and folds of the hills. Importantly these towns also sold the famed Belgium beers. After setting up camp we rode into town and sat down to work our way through a series of excellent brews as research for the rest of our Belgium trip. We had heard a lot about the beers and we weren’t disappointed. In Australia it is common to see the big brands like Hoegarden and Stella but these are made in large factories and are looked down upon by serious Belgian beer drinkers (bit like our Fosters I guess). The smaller beers are numerous (about 350 types) and their traditional brewing methods produce a rich and complex taste that is unlike anything I have drunk before. The wide variety available also encourages different styles and it is a pleasure to try the various styles. The other special tradition is that every beer has its own glass. You should only drink the beer from its own glass and so your beers are served in a variety of glasses that range from beautiful crystal to very odd shapes that need a wooden stand.

The next day we headed off in search of beer brewing monks. Our first stop (Rocquefort) wasn’t so successful as the monastery and brewery are not open for visits. We then headed on to Chimay where we knew visits were allowed. We went into the monastery and a man came to ask us to wait. My French was just up to the explanation and we waited 10 minutes before being ushered into the Abbey. A service was just finishing and he had let us enter for the singing at the end of the more private mass. We joined a couple of people in the pews and a group of 12 monks led by a great baritone sung the hymns. The acoustics of the church were amazing and the monk’s voices rose in harmony to the high vaulted roof. It was a stunning moment – the spirituality and peace of the hymns gave a great counterpoint to the brews that in some ways had over shadowed the original purpose of the monastery.

We looked around the gardens before heading down the hill to the pub. Here we relaxed over a fine beer and looked out on the monk’s dairy herd. The monastery was founded on the principles of both physical labour and intellectual pursuit – the brewing of beer and the making of cheese were the physical tasks chosen by the founders. After having the cheese on our bread for lunch we can also vouch for its quality.

Our next stop was a brief visit to Brussels and then onto the very picturesque Brugge. Due to a quirk of history (the river silted up and all the businesses moved downstream) it is a very well preserved town. Not only the centre but a large area of buildings have survived and it is a very impressive place to wander around. We parked outside and rode our bikes in to look around the sights and have a quiet canal-side beer. It was a fine way to spend the last evening of our very enjoyable Belgium visit.

Luxembourg

Looking back along the Moselle

Great dinner spot at our campground on the Moselle at Traben-Trarbach

Bacharach from the other side of the Rhine

View from the castle down to Bacharach

The castle above Heidelberg

Rhine and Mosel

Once the meetings were over we spent a day in Heidelberg with Ash. The town is packed with tourists but the ruined castle overlooking the town makes it well worth the effort. On the way back we witnessed a breakdown in technology as the GPS navigation system in Ash’s hire Mercedes-Benz (he got a free upgrade) lost the plot. It directed us down a dead-end service road and when we tried another road it continuously asked us to do u-turns. Ash had a lot of faith in the disembodied female voice that had directed him so well over the previous week and it was only after about 6 u-turns that he allowed us to switch back to using the perfectly good map I was holding.

Leaving Ash on the Sunday we headed north to the Rhine River. We tried taking some quiet roads but ended up on a bike route. Feeling out of place we got back on some freeways and dropped into the famous Rhine Valley in time to camp on the edge of the river near Bacharach. This was a great spot – a well preserved little town on the river it was surrounded by steeply sloping vineyards and overlooked by a restored castle. The castle was a youth hostel but was booked out when we were there. We went for a morning ride the next day using the well patronized cycle paths on either side of the river. We also really loved the Riesling from the wineries surrounding the town and happily whiled away a few hours on a sunny afternoon at one of the wineries’ winestubes (wine bar).

We pulled ourselves away for a quick visit to Koblenz to see the junction of the Rhine and Mosele. Allegedly you should be able to see the clear waters of the Mosele mix with the browner Rhine but on the day we were there it was hard to see any difference in color. We then followed the Mosele upstream through more lovely vineyard\river scenery. The wine continued to be very drinkable and we had a fantastic dinner spot on the rivers edge on one night just outside Traben-Trarbach. By this stage we had enough German and enough wine knowledge to pick both winebars and wines so enjoyed riding back into town for a pre-dinner drink.

Next day we passed through Trier (checking out the famous Roman black gates that have guarded the southern approach for 2000 years) and then into Luxembourg. We had a quick look around the capital (confusingly also called Luxembourg) and liked what we saw – it is a pleasant city with a picturesque old town. We stayed just north of the centre and the next day managed to finally pick up some roof racks for our little car. We soon had the bikes on the roof and began to reap the benefits of being able to go for a ride without first completely re-assembling the bikes (mine had to have both wheels, the handlebars and the back disk brake caliper removed before it would fit in).

Burgheim (our car is the grey\blue one, second from the right)

Pub in the small French town of St Hippolyte

Swiss-French border in the Gorges du Doubs

Looking back to Lausanne on the shore Lac Leman on our way from Geneva

Some excellent but brief singletrack at Morzine

Heading To Germany

We decided not to follow the Tour further south and took a “rest” day in the town where we were staying, Brides les Bains. With our bikes we took a gondola up to the top of the Meribel ski resort. From there we started down and tried to grab as much singletrack as we could. It wasn’t easy but we managed to get a few nice trails to go with the view.

The next day we paid a final visit to the bakery and headed north to Morzine. We had heard good things about the riding at this French ski resort and the scenery on the drive through the Alps certainly looked promising.

Short of time we caught another lift up and on the way lost Kath’s waterbottle. But given we skipped paying for the ride up by feigning even less French than we have it wasn’t such a bad loss. The trails down started well but finished badly on a rutted track ruined by too many downhill heroes on 8” travel bikes.

The next day we had a very pleasant breakfast with Ged in Geneva. The Bains de Paqui are a set of swimming baths jutting out into the lake and they have a great café serving simple, cheap breakfasts with a million dollar view. Heading off we briefly looked at Neufchatel before dropping back into France via some nice scenery in the Gorges de Doubs. We stayed the night at St Hippolyte, a small working class town set on a river.

On our last day before some work meetings in Germany we headed north through the Alsace region of France. A disputed zone between France and Germany for many years the people and towns are a mix of French and German. We stopped off at a few towns and wineries to sample the architecture and fine white wines. Some towns were touristy but others like Bourgheim were delightful. Late the afternoon we crossed into Germany at Strasbourg and took a very slow road to Bobblingen just south of Stuttgart.

The week of meetings was tiring but eased by the brewery in the town, Schonbuch Brua, which produced some nice ales and had a pleasant pub\beer garden attached to the brewery.

Kath heads back down to the car

Crowd cheers the slower riders up the climb

Kath looking the part after the caravan

Crowds near the top of Col de la Madeleine

Yellow jersey Jens Voigt struggles up Courchevel

One small car and a lot of gear...

Chateau near Tour

Tour de France Mountain Stages

On our last day in Paris we caught the metro across town and picked up our lease Renault. The process went smoothly and we were soon stuck in Parisian traffic in our nice but small Renault. Back at the hotel we had an epic struggle and an hour later finally got all our gear inside. Leaving at lunch time we headed south from Paris through the beautiful Chateaux of the Loire Valley. The next day we continued south towards the French Alps and the Tour de France. After a long drive on expensive toll roads we got to the foot of the climb to Courchevel a few hours before the riders.

We extracted the bikes from the car and started to ride up the stage. The climb was long but the crowds and friendly riders around us made it an easy climb. About halfway up we stopped and settled in to watch the publicity caravan go by. After my experiences at Blois I was an old hand now and we got a lot of free stuff and, most importantly, we grabbed free cold beer from the Buckler van.

The riders soon came by and it was a small front group that swept past. Lance looked comfortable (further up this climb he attacked and dropped all the other key riders) and we were excited to see Cadel Evans still in the front group at this point. We dropped back down to the car through the traffic jam and managed to squeeze into a nice campground in the valley.

The Tour descended from Courchevel the next day before climbing out of the valley over the Col de la Madeleine. In what was a long day they then had the Col du Telegraphe and then the Col du Galibier. We hoped to see them on the later two climbs but the road was blocked before the top of the first Col. So we parked the car and rode the 7km to the top. We checked out the very top before picking a spot just below the peak. Some freebies and cold beer livened up the wait. The riders came through early afternoon and although it was more crowded we had a good view as the wound up the hairpins below us.

To get back down to the car we noticed some walking trails on the alpine slopes beside the road. We took the chance and it paid off with a singletrack descent that ended right beside our car!