Distance 142k
Time 6 hours
Climb 1950m
Weather Wet and windy
I woke up with a slightly sore head but this soon cleared when I get outside and into the wind which had freshened up considerably since the day before.
Fortunately I found a route which took me round the large hill I had to go up yesterday and headed off back into Luxembourg. The day's route took me south to north through the middle of Luxembourg then back into Belgium. With the wind, rain and unfamiliar terrain I was not sure how far I would get so I set off, with the intention of seeing how I would get on and think about booking a hotel at lunch time.
The morning went well, though I found Luxembourg is quite hilly. I stopped at Wiltz for a snack lunch and gave Mrs M a call and asked her to see if she could find a hotel in Belgium just past the border.
I started off again and pretty much as soon as I had turned the pedal it started raining. This marked the beginning of an afternoon of showers/alternating with sun, with the wind blowing all the time.
Sometimes it got a little more interesting as the showers turned into downpours. This reached a crescendo as I headed down a hill, ironically just after passing a cafe but deciding not to stop. The sky went from light to dark in a few seconds and a huge wind whipped up the hill making progress, even with the aid of gravity, almost impossible. Then it started to hail and the road turned into an ice rink. Luckily there was another cafe at the bottom of the hill. Not so luckily it was shut. So I cowered under a tree at the front, feeling miserable and eating my emergency banana.
After 15 minutes or so the storm passed over and I continued on my way, eventually leaving Luxembourg to get back into Belgium.
Not long after I came across a significant problem in route. I use Michelin maps and on these yellow roads are often a good choice for the cyclist making long journeys each day, as being a balance of not too much traffic but reasonably direct and with good road surface. So I chose these in preference in Belgium as well.
This proved a mistake, as the yellow roads in Belgium actually had a lot of traffic (I guess because the country is so much more crowded) and appalling road surfaces.
The worst was the N676 from St-Vith to Amel. This is narrow, but with lots of HGVs passing every 15 seconds or so. It seems to be constructed of massive oblongs of concrete about 10 m long, laid end to end like a row of dominos. The concrete surface is rough and slippy when wet, but worse each junction between blocks makes bikes without mountain tyres jump and shake like mad. I had planned to cover 15km on the N676. I did 2 and was as scared as I have ever been riding a cycle anywhere. I stopped and quickly re-plotted my route to go across country and was very pleased I did as not only was there almost no traffic at all but the countryside was very much more picturesque.
My route eventually took me to Robertville, which seems a like a nice holiday resort.
http://www.robertville.be/
I stopped there for a drink and was informed by Mrs M that she had found me a Best Western hotel to the north in Eupen. This did not seem like too far on the map, it meant going by a main road (the N68). This proved to be fine, however what I did not realise was that I was heading into the Eifel mountains, so had a way to go up before arriving at my hotel.
http://www.naturpark-hohesvenn-eifel.de/fr/die6landschaften/hocheifel/index.php
Also, inevitably it seemed, it had started to rain. Again.
I was feeling a bit tired as I headed up hill and also, as my clothes began to get wetter and wetter through a combination of rain and perspiration, I started get colder and colder. Fortunately the road was wide enough to avoid the splashes and most of the spray caused by the occasional car that passed me.
It seemed a long way to get to the top of the climb around Mt Rigi but after that things got a lot quicker as the road started going downhill and I had built up a real head of steam as I tanked down the road to Eupen. The hotel was easy to find, right at the entrance of the town at the bottom of the hill I was speeding down.
http://catalogue.horse21.co.uk/belgium+hotels/eupen+hotels/best+western+ambassador+hotel+bosten
I parked up and went in. I was dripping wet but the manager was very welcoming, showing me a place to park my bike for the night and telling me that I had been upgraded to a bigger room (Mrs M must have done some sweet talking).
The best thing about the super room was the big warm bath. I washed away the day's grime and warmed myself up. The hotel was proud of its restaurant (as you can see below) so I dined there and had a thoroughly good meal. My only concern was that I seemed to have lost my Alien and compass. (My Alien being a handy multi-tool, a sort of Swiss army penknife for cyclists). Still that would have to wait until tomorrow.
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