We are in Flanders and our first impressions are of pretty villages, lots of brick houses and hundreds of cyclists. We left the Meuse River just at the point where it becomes the Maas and flows towards Maastricht in the Netherlands. We instead travelled North along the Albert Canal then the Zuidwillemsvaart. The Albert Canal was begun after World War 1 to speed the passage of commercial traffic. It was finished just as World War II began and continues to be a busy commercial waterway carrying the largest barges. The Zuidwillemsvaart is a much older Canal, built in the 1820s.
Barges to 185metres and 5,000tonnes!
Caves from the war now used to grow mushrooms
At the first lock in Flanders we duly presented our ships papers and paid 80 euros for our Vignette which allows us to navigate the waterways of Flanders for three months. We need it for less than one month but there is no provision for a monthly permit. The lock-keeper was friendly and helpful. As advised, David spoke to him in English. We proceeded along much flatter countryside with the canals lined with trees. Because the countryside is so level there are very few locks. There are several loading areas for barges but most of the countryside is rural. The canals skirt the border between Belgium and the Netherlands. Belgium was occupied by Germany during World War II and there are German bunkers all along the canals. In the hillier area to the South, caves were cut into the rocks to store munitions. Now they are used to grow mushrooms.
Our first Flemish town was Rekem, clearly a town geared towards tourists, with beautiful gardens and window boxes, many coffee shops and clear explanatory signs in Flemish, French and English. The houses were built in the early 1600s in a uniform style as laid down by the town's baron, all two stories and built of small red bricks in uniform style. Some of the town gates from 1590 are still standing and there are remnants of the earlier gates built in the fifth century. Much of the area now settled was swamp land so a system of canals was built to drain the water and open it up for farming. An ice cellar was described: in the winter ice was collected and placed in the cellar, where it stayed frozen right though the summer. Perhaps such cellars were common before refrigeration but this is the
first we have seen described.
Main street of Rekem. Houses from 1630.
As we travelled along the canal enjoying the warm sunny weather we became aware of the hordes of cyclists passing on a huge variety of bikes. Some riders are lying flat, one with a windscreen; an aerodynamic white capsule, one man was towing his wife in a wheelchair, some are on motorised scooters like those seen in shopping centres. Many cyclists are at least as old as we are, some look like serious cyclists and of course you have the family groups where mum has the littlest one in a baby seat, Dad is towing the next in a trailer and the older children are riding their little bikes. Altogether we saw several hundred cyclists on our first
day in this area, a Monday, and they were still coming past at 10 o'clock at night, still light here at this time of year. The next day we took to our bikes too and enjoyed the wide, smooth concrete bike paths in this flat countryside.
Early morning on the tree-lined canal
Our main disappointment so far has been the lack of bread. although we had not noticed a bakery yesterday in our stroll through town, David went out confidently this morning to buy our daily loaf. He came home empty handed. He had the same experience in the second town we stopped at and had to wait until the local Lidl (a store like Aldi) opened to get bread . Great disappointment!
Eventually our canal path turns more westward and
we travel by the Canal from Harentals to Bocholt, interesting as it began as a project by Napoleon in he early 1800s, to link the Rhine to the rivers of what are now France, Belgium and the Netherlands. After his fall the work stopped but this section of the project was completed in the mid- 1800s and continues to be a much used waterway. Towards the end of this section we came to a series of locks and lifting bridges, semi automatic in that a lock-keeper had to press the buttons to make everything work. Our progress on this series of locks has been the slowest of our trip. There didn't seem to be any advance planning or co- ordination of the effort. We were pleased to stop for the night at a peaceful rural stopping spot.
Best Regards,
Penny and David