Just a bit bad atmosphere in Belgium!

From Moerdijk, South from Dordrecht, we proceeded towards Belgium. As soon as we had left some ugly, industrial parts behind us, our environment was rural again and even the sun came out for a bit.

some cute donkeys on the road

Shortly afterwards it started to rain again, therefore we wanted to warm up a bit during lunch in Rosendaal. Soon after we were already in Belgium and could marvel at all those big old houses.

When we finally arrived in Antwerp it was pretty late and cold. Nevertheless we found that the city is quite charming. Also the people were really friendly there and many of them offered us their help, if we needed it.

Great thing was that Stephane had invited us to stay in his big house although we had just written him shortly before. We had some great conversations also about where Tom Barman of dEUS likes to hang out in Antwerp. 😉 Once again a big thank you for your spontaneous hospitality!

with Stephane

Also the next day the weather wasn’t better, which is why we were already frozen to the marrow when we entered one of those frituur huts in Westerlo. For little money we had a lot of greasy food. 😉

In the evening we were welcomed by Inge and Tim in Hasselt. They like to go on cycle adventures with their little daughter Stine and could tell us a lot about how that works. Besides, they could give us some more information about the (bad) relationship between Flamish and French Belgians. The most money seems to be in the Northern, Flamish part of Belgium. This might be the reason why there are such great cycling paths everywhere and very little garbage next to the road. Well, in the Southern, French part it’s quite the opposite…

with Inge, Tim and Belgian beer 😉

Unortunately, the next day was tainted by the sad events in Brussels which is only 80 km from Hasselt… The weather was disgusting, our surroundings industrial and ugly. Only Maastricht (yes, that’s in the Netherlands), where a detour of 35 km lead us, could better our mood for a while.

Maastricht

When we had a snack in Liège (Lüttich) we didn’t feel quite safe. There were police with big guns everywhere and the whole atmosphere in the city was just negative and uneasy. So we were pretty happy to leave the city again after a night with our hosts Philippe and Laurène.

Liège