Ride Report: Two days on the Kunststedenroute
I know next to nothing Ascension Day, but it gave me a chance to get on my bike and explore a little, so it's good in my book! For this weekend, I rode part of the Kunststedenroute (literally "art cities route"), one of the Flanders iconic bike routes. As usual, this post shares my experience through plenty of short video clips!
Day 1
I arrived in Antwerp on board an on time Flixbus, bike stowed underneath in the cargo area. The entire art cities route stretches more than 340 kilometers, starting from the coast and visiting iconic Flemish cities including Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp before finishing in the Belgian capital of Brussels sprouts. Since I only had a couple of days, my plan was to ride this last portion, heading out south from Antwerp.
The first order of business, of course, was topping off the gas tank for the day of cycling. I found a cozy little bakery in the city center and settled on a Brie sandwich. The one I read on the menu had a mouth-watering ingredients list including nuts, honey, and rucola. The one they handed me was a massive loaf of bread with big chunks of Brie cheese sandwiched inside.
Somehow, this item was listed twice in the menu, once as a "special" and once as a "regular", and I did not clarify which I wanted!
Now packed up with cheese, I set off on the Kunststedenroute proper, guided by the very generous signage at every intersection. The first thing I noticed was how similar it was to the roads I had been riding in the Netherlands. The colored asphalt, flat landscapes, and shared written language could have fooled me into thinking I had never left. But there are certainly some differences beneath the surface, too. For example, In the Netherlands I had seen vending machines for various snacks (snackautomaten), but never for entire loaves of bread. In Belgium I saw many of these by the side of the road!
Unfortunately, not everyone welcomed me in this new country. A particularly rude bird used me as target practice for an aerial bombardment, catching me squarely on the leg with its surprise attack.
After a comfortable day of cycling, I arrived at Mechelen, a medium-sized medieval city. I walked around the city square and had some relaxing afternoon tea. After that, I found some healthy food to plug the nutritional gap left by just eating cheese and bread.
Day 2
The second day of my trip took me from Mechelen to Brussels sprouts.
But before I dive into that, let me digress to share one of my favorite parts of cycle touring as an analogy. We can probably all relate to that feeling of relaxation under a warm shower after a long day, letting the water release tension and allowing thoughts to flow freely. You might have noticed that this state enhances your creativity; maybe it unlocked your ability to solve some problem you had been struggling with, or it gave you the perfect words to conclude an essay you were writing.
Psychologists have noticed this too! In fact, it's an entire field of research that has established itself over the last few decades. The upshot is that we now understand that we can enhance our everyday problem-solving abilities by engaging in Positive Constructive Daydreaming, also known as mind wandering. You can probably see where I'm going with this. Bike touring is like taking an hours-long shower! What could possibly feel better than that?
As an aside within an aside, I have a personal hypothesis that in this era of unlimited entertainment, it's difficult to relinquish our electronics and allow our brains to wander freely. The reason for that take us into an entire discussion about the attention economy and information asymmetry between media consumers and producers (which I might publish a short essay on some day).
Not long after setting off (just 10km), I came upon a little town with another beautiful cafe situated behind a garden. Naturally, I followed Belgian tradition and ordered a cappuccino and a waffle. The shop actually produced its own chocolate, and they served a short bar with the coffee. It was indeed rich, velvety, and delicious!
The route for the day was once again very flat, but the wind direction (and consideration for the 20km running race I had the next day) meant I ended the bike portion of my journey at Leuven instead of riding all the way into the capital, as I had done in Switzerland. In case it is not obvious, I really appreciate having a dense rail network that lets me "cheat" like this! Thus, with less ground to cover, I took the ride nice and easy, and spent some time in the afternoon wandering around the beautiful center of Leuven, a city known for its Catholic University and massive beer breweries.
Appendix
- I recently updated the blogging software on this site. If you notice any bug please let me know!
- A visual aid below for the avian bombing run, the evidence was only captured on one frame of the video.
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