While on tour, we're always keeping our eyes out on the weather. Today the chance of rain was to be increasing in late morning and tapering off early in the afternoon. So we were all kinda anxious to be on the road early. The ride was to be 91 km so we wanted to be on our way by 8:30.
We were fortunate. The morning temperatures were cool, about 55 degrees or so and the sky was a blanket of high gray clouds, but the rain held off. We had to stop in the town of Genappe at this welcoming cafe called; Café de la Lanterne. As you can see in the photo below, the cafe was in a very welcoming spot as we entered Genappe. It seemed as if we had wave after wave of riders stop here.
The high point of the day was a visit to Waterloo, the location of Napoleon's defeat. The following photo is the Lion's Mound which is visible from kilometers away. Its creation was ordered in 1020 and complete 1826 and for a fee you can climb to the top. We decided to pass on the opportunity, we still had more than 1/2 more of the ride to go and lunch was waiting for us.
Lunch was hosted at Eduard's home close to the half way point of the ride. Eduard, thank you for your wonderful hospitality.
Most of the ride to the evening's hotel was a long some beautiful rail to trail path. For folks that are not familiar with rails to trails, these are walking paths and bike paths that follow abandoned trail routes that have been converted to other uses.
As you can see in the photo below, the rail to trails are typically straight and fairly flat and tree lined. One of the benefits that we enjoyed today was how the trees blocked the wind as we were encountering strong headwind and side winds, but when we were on the trails, we were sheltered, which made our ride very enjoyable.
Happy Biking
Brian
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