Days 16, 17, 18 – Liege & Durbuy

Day 16 – Brussels to Liege – 120km cycling

• Hell day. Seemed to go on for ever. I don’t think I will ever attempt to do this distance on a cycle laden with gear ever again!!
• Had a small breakage on the bike which meant I had to go very slowly to Leuven which probably slowed me by a couple of hours, but I did manage to get it fixed for €2.70
• Cycling seemed endless and on bigger roads, so not lot of interesting stuff
• Did see my 2^nd statue of Liberty in Belgium
• Also, about an hour or two outside of Liege, there are a lot of very seedy looking ‘clubs’ along the road, with prostitutes standing in the windows ‘advertising’ Amsterdam-style. In the country-side!
• Got into Liege quite late and phone started to die – good excuse to stay in a hotel! So ended the evening with beer and snacks in bed while watching TV, which was not so bad 🙂

Day 17 – Liege to Durbuy and Barvaux sur Oerthe

• Long day – windy and rainy most of the way, as well as being quite hilly so very tiring
• Met a man on a bike called France as I was cycling out of Liege, very nice and friendly, and seemed to take a real interest in my Ortlieb saddle bags
• Got into Durbuy (there is a lovely castle by the riverside here, pretty little tourist town)
• At Durbuy, started chatting to another cyclist called Koen, who had followed the river more from Liege and said he had a lovely cycle!
• Found a campsite at Barvaux, good and cheap
• Had a restaurant dinner, and a conversation with a chap from the funfair that was in town, very friendly fellow, got a photo of us together
• Absolutely pouring down with rain for about an hour overnight, started to worry that the river would rise and overflow into my tent

Day 18 – Durbuy

• Stayed an extra night so I could go and see inside the castle. But the castle was closed!
• Did have a lovely 6km walk from the campsite to Durbuy, following the river
• Slipped over on some steps and thought I’d broken my arm for a while, really hurt – instead, just some minor damage to camera lens cap
• Went back to campsite and drank too much beer!