Europe 2014: Warmup ride...

We both had a reasonably good sleep. Amazing how well a combination of wines, Advil PM, and Melatonin works. The weather looked good so we decided to assemble the bikes and make a visit to the center of Brussels. It is about the same distance as our home in River Dunes to the Bean in Oriental (10 miles), but that is all it has in common!

We took off through the forest first, and then gradually merged in with the chaos that is Brussels traffic near downtown. The good part is that the drivers are very aware of cyclists even though there is not much room on the narrow streets (many with cobble stones). I had commuted a few years on a motorcycle to my office in downtown Brussels, but this was Linda's first experience going through busy city traffic like this on two wheels. She quickly got back into swing of crazy Belgium traffic and was much more comfortable when it was all done. A couple times we got off and walked the bikes on the sidewalk when the car traffic on the road was completely at a standstill.

We made our first stop in the Grand Place which is where all the tourists head as well. We missed the Flower festival that they have there every other year by a couple weeks. We have seen it before so it wasn't such a big deal, but highly recommend it if you haven't seen it. They decorate the cobble stone square of the Grand Place with flowers, typically like a giant oriental carpet. http://www.flowercarpet.be. Skipped the Manneken Pis statue which we feel is a highly overrated visitor site. You can Google it if you think you got slighted by us not including a detailed narrative or pictures about it...

Got our much desired first Belgian waffle of the trip which was great. The ones we like are called Liege waffles that have the little lumps of sugar inside. Yummmm! Came across this very funny article in a Bicycle magazine which describes such an experience for the first time by an American. http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/sweetest-ride

We browsed some of the shops and then headed for an outside cafe where I got my first Belgian beer of the trip.. So good and the sun was shining too!! But also not so wise since the alcohol content of a real Belgian beer is typically 2-3 times more that one from the US, and we still had to bike back home through the mayhem of Brussels traffic.

We managed to make our way back safely and had another relaxing afternoon and evening with our host. I don't think we'll ever leave now!! Tomorrow is when we hit the road for real on our bikes with all our stuff and head towards the coast and eventually Holland. Target destination for the day will be Ghent, Belgium. More to follow...