Day 10, uggh! I’m paying for my Arenberg day today. My cold is back in full swing, 2.5 hours of hard riding took a lot out of me. Today I was planning to drive back to the Forest, hang out at the entrance, have beer and frits, and watch the big screen for most of the race and watch the men ride through the forest at over twice the speed I rode it.
Nope! Time for some serious recovery. Breakfast, in the lodging, muesli, oak milk, bananas. Back to the couch. I spent most of the day there, watching the bike race on the big TV and relaxing. Eventually, off to the town square just a block or two away for a real hearty lunch and then back to the couch to watch the last 100 k of the race. A very restless night’s sleep I suspect and hoping I am back on top tomorrow.
Day 11, Monday, and the pharmacy is open for drugs to help me. I slept ok last night, restless all night but I managed to recover a lot so our planned trip to a town named Kortrijk and a bike ride is back on. I did some research yesterday and picked this town as a good small town that would be easy for me to ride out and back from/to plus give Vera some area to wander and explore. I have never been to Kortrijk, just sounded good and smaller scale, easier to navigate. Plus, the weather played in our favor, cool, windy, no rain, some sun, all good. We arrived, and the town was bigger than I thought, and it didn’t look promising for a bike ride until we made our way through town and found the canal zone. Great!
Now, how do we get near enough to places Vera can walk to and I can get out of town on a bike as well as park and figure out how to pay for parking. Well, I don’t remember how but we figured the parking out, I got a 2-hour ride in, Vera enjoyed the quaint old town that was full of easter holiday energy and carnival stuff. We met back up, tried to find a dining place, checked one, just closing. Walked back into the carnival area and found a semi fast food pasta place that made quick, flavorful pasta meals for cheap, sidewalk seating across from the carnival happenings, filling and good.
Easy walk back to the car through some scenic areas and then a 30-k drive back to the city traffic of Lille trying to find that tiny entrance road into the underground, dense, circular parking ramp that went down 5 to 6 levels. The good thing about this ramp, besides being a part of the cost of the Airbnb, was it felt safe, and I could park the car backed into a stall, wall to the rear, wall to the left and a car close by the right so I left the bike and bike case in the car overnight. There was no way to get a door open far enough to get anything out of that car.
Another successful day and with some drugs in me, I am feeling much better. Now, what, and where for tomorrow?