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I'm planning a week long bike tour in Belgium this summer, carrying camping kit. We're fairly experienced tourists but never ridden in Belgium.
A rough plan is to leave the car in Dover then ride from Dunkirk to Ostend. Then get the train to Liege and ride south towards Malmedy, up to Aachen then Maastrict, Leuven, Brussels, Ghent, Bruges. Then south towards Ypres and back to Dunkirk. I think that would give us a flavour of the Ardennes in Wallonia, some interesting looking cities, some WW1 history and some Flanders hills at the end.
I'd welcome your suggestions as to how we could tweak this route - maybe exclude some bits and include others.
I'd also like to hear your experiences of Belgian campsites. There doesn't seem to be an equivalent of the French municipal sites which are cheap and ideal for bike touring, and always find space if you just turn up.
Thanks.
I’m currently sitting in the queue for the ferry having just spent a few days with my BiL and his mates riding the Limbergs Mooiste (110km one day gravel/mtb sportif) as well as some other bits of Holland.
It passed through the Drielanden punt where Belgium, Holland and Germany meet right by Aachen. I can definitely recommend the area and with 2000m of climbing in the 110km it wasn’t flat!
Valkenberg is a nice area ( though just over the border into Holland ) and has many nice campsites.
Limburg is very cycling oriented so if you can fit in that area you’ll not be disappointed and we saw the Jumbo Visma Jr Squad out training a couple of times.
Gulpen is also worth a visit as it lives up to its name and has a bunch of micro breweries with bar’s attached…
I think Tony aka Ton on here is doing something v similar at this instant. Maybe DM him?
Ian
If you like beer try to fit in a visit to WestVletteren. There is a nice farm campsite about 3 or 4km away and it is close to Ypres for all the ww1 you can handle. Do check which day the brewery outlet/bar is shut, I think its a friday or something crazy like that!
All the Fietsroutes, (bike paths) have number signs at the intersections, with arrows to the next junction along on each sign. You can get maps with all the routes and numbered junctions on them, so if you plan it all you need for navigation is a list of numbers to follow. On the map below, if you wanted to travel from Halle to Ranst, you'd only need to follow the sequence 89, 90, 26, 25, 29, 78, 77. Brilliant system that extends into Holland I believe.
I did something similar a couple of weeks ago - starting and finishing in Rotterdam and heading east to Germany then back across Luxembourg and Belgium with a short incursion into France.
The network linked above extends across the Netherlands and into bits of northern France but into the Walloon Ardennes (I don't think). The network is great if you're not in a hurry but it can be difficult to but together a straight line route if you want to get anywhere - for that the canals are great if they're in the right direction - traffic free towpaths the width of a road on many of them. In Wallonia there are also quite a few old railway lines converted to cycle lanes - Ravels - some are great others are maybe a bit boring.
I also saw lots of waymarked longer distance routes around Ronse / Oudernaarde -but suspect they're loops.
My favourite parts of the trip was the SE Ardennes - lots of rolling countryside and quiet roads - the Meuse valley is also good - there's a cycle path from Charleville Mezieres to Givet (all in france).
I can't tell you anything about camping as we were staying in hotels and B&Bs.
And in the flatter bits the wind can be brutal - we had headwind for 3 days and bailed out in the end because it wasn't fun.
OP, if you send me a PM, i can share with you a komoot/gpx file with a route Brussels-Ghent-Ypres-Dunkerque.
Avoids major roads, passes by many cemeteries and breweries.
Did this last year. We drove to Da Haan on the coast where we left the car then took in Bruges, Ghent, Oodenaard, Ypres etc. Great trip. Bit of learning from us though... its tempting to use the excellent paths alongside canals all the time but after a few miles it can get quite dull so try and mix it up with backroads as well just to keep up the visual interest.
I also saw lots of waymarked longer distance routes around Ronse / Oudernaarde -but suspect they’re loops.
Yeah, they are, my uncle passed me an excellent little guide book about them recently. They're primarily for people who want a day out stringing together the famous bits of the Tour of Flanders/Belgian classics races.
Thanks v much everyone - v useful.
@hansrey I've sent you a PM
@slowoldman, that Fietsnet site is really useful thanks.