Bruges

Bruges is looooovely! ~ Samuel Stokes 2014.

Sam summed it up nicely, Bruges really was lovely! In a city where bikes are left unchained and parked up outside cafés, shops and parks, and where at night the cobbled streets are only trodden on by couples taking romantic strolls, quiet tourists and friendly drunks, I think it's safe to say  we fell in love with bruges quiet quickly. 

We spent the evening sipping on peach flavoured beer for me, and Duval for Sam in the hostels bar. Perfect way to spend the evening after wandering around the winding streets. 

We took a relaxed approach to the cycle the next morning, it was nice not to feel any pressure, and so when a lovely man suggested we take an alternative and more picturesque route we thought 'why not?!'. It wasn't until we were meandering through remote Belgium towns that we realised we were very lost! It didn't matter though as the weather was glorious and the views were beautiful. It also helped that we were kick ass at navigation so made it to Ghent in good time. Ghent was a city we rather unjustly judged - I mean, the name in itself is enough to put you off, right?! But it was so cool! It was a city mixed with historic buildings and a young city vibe. We made it in to Ghent at 430 and restricted ourself to half an hour break. Whilst we munched on home made sandwiches, people headed towards the river to soak up the rays and drink ice cold beer. We were so jealous - we had over half of our journey to go - rather reluctantly we headed for the WORST leg of the journey. EVER. It was horrendous. Time went slowly, it felt as though we weren't making any distance, my legs hurt, Sams tooth aches and by the time we reached our checkpoints the air around us was blue and we were cursing Assalt and Asse - where was Brussels!! Anyway, without dwelling on that dark patch, we reached hostel at around 10 and collapsed into a slumber.

Loon-plage

Loon-Plage.

Earlier I mentioned that we didn't actually dock in Dunkirk. We landed in the ports next to the village of Loon-Plage. This ended up adding a further 9 miles to our journey and we cycled a total of nine hours (including rest stops). Dunkirk to the Belgium boarder was pretty uneventful, we peddled hard in the sunshine. Oh yeah, there was that time when I had to use a shady looking gambling cafe to use the toilet, I felt obliged to sit down and gulp a coke down in front of several looming men, let's just say I didn't stay too long! 

When we reached the Belgium boarder, after a quick pose in front f the boarder sign we cycled through and instantly fell in love with Belgium. It's clean, most people smile, it's uber cycle friendly and their architecture kept us entertained throughout.

To begin with we cycled along the beach path, watching people play on the beach... In March, what luxury! Eventually it was too busy for us to cycle along, so we headed for the roads where we were beeped at by the tram soooo we headed to the bigger roads and cycled straight for Bruges. The last leg of this trip took us along a tranquil canal route, where the only sounds that could be heard were the singing birds, crickets and Sam moaning. Actually, to be fair we were both pretty sore at this point but the natural beauty of the sunset and nature kept us merry until we reached the quiet centre of Bruges.