Where's Bertie? He's in a car park in the town of Gavere (exact location: 50.92744, 3.65734)
Weather: Rain until early afternoon, then just overcast. Increasingly cool.
A day that did not go to plan!
After another run on the lakeside tracks for me, and a goodly amount of pre-departure faffing, we waved goodbye to the Aire at Harelbeke (at least for 3 days, which is how long we have to be away until we can go back) and drove the 25 miles up the road to Ghent, with good plans of spending a couple of days exploring the city. Those plans went to rats when we found the fair not just in town, but completely filling the car park used by motorhomes.
The only other place I knew we could park was at Ikea, just outside of the city to the south, so that's where we headed. Reaching it involved a ridiculous road system, offically named 'The Loop'. From being right outside of the place, one has to do a circuit of The Loop, amounting to the best part of 5km, in order to get to the car park ... where we found a 2.5m height barrier. Another bit of driving around did find us the 4m entrance, but it was surprisingly ill-marked, considering how many people arrive at Ikea in vans.
We could then have abandonned Bertie in their car park, nipped over to the tram station next door and taken a trip into Ghent anyway, but it was almost lunchtime by then, and we didn't want to spend the night at Ikea, so it didn't seem worth paying out for a tram into town, just to have a lunch and a very quick look around.
Lunch, Ikea-stylee
Thus, instead of our two days in Ghent, we actually had a couple of hours in Ikea. Rather a let-down, but looking for some positive slant: I haven't been to Ikea for years, and I've never eaten there, so (perhaps it's a little sad to admit) it wasn't a bad way to spend a couple of hours - even if it's not something for which we would have chosen to drive 25 miles out of our way.
Another battle with The Loop, and the road system in general, and down to Gavere we headed, for no reason other than it being relatively nearby and that we could park there.
The most notable thing that we've found in Gavere is that the church is at the top of the hill. A hill! In Belgium! Okay, so it's not going to make its way into any hill lists, but the main road, which runs up it, has a noticeable slant to it.
Just a snap of a building in Gavere. Pity about the bag of rubbish in the empty fountain.
Our explorations of the town (dead - made us wonder if we are following closed-day from town to town) were followed by a stroll though the woods, adjacent to the car park, on a trail which has been recently resurfaced...
1.5km of trail made with wood chippings
...returning along the riverside.
It was rather pleasant to get back to Bertie. From the 15 degrees of two days ago, it's a biting 5 degrees today, so Bertie's interior (at all of 17 degrees) felt gloriously warm when we returned.
Weather: Rain until early afternoon, then just overcast. Increasingly cool.
A day that did not go to plan!
After another run on the lakeside tracks for me, and a goodly amount of pre-departure faffing, we waved goodbye to the Aire at Harelbeke (at least for 3 days, which is how long we have to be away until we can go back) and drove the 25 miles up the road to Ghent, with good plans of spending a couple of days exploring the city. Those plans went to rats when we found the fair not just in town, but completely filling the car park used by motorhomes.
The only other place I knew we could park was at Ikea, just outside of the city to the south, so that's where we headed. Reaching it involved a ridiculous road system, offically named 'The Loop'. From being right outside of the place, one has to do a circuit of The Loop, amounting to the best part of 5km, in order to get to the car park ... where we found a 2.5m height barrier. Another bit of driving around did find us the 4m entrance, but it was surprisingly ill-marked, considering how many people arrive at Ikea in vans.
We could then have abandonned Bertie in their car park, nipped over to the tram station next door and taken a trip into Ghent anyway, but it was almost lunchtime by then, and we didn't want to spend the night at Ikea, so it didn't seem worth paying out for a tram into town, just to have a lunch and a very quick look around.
Lunch, Ikea-stylee
Thus, instead of our two days in Ghent, we actually had a couple of hours in Ikea. Rather a let-down, but looking for some positive slant: I haven't been to Ikea for years, and I've never eaten there, so (perhaps it's a little sad to admit) it wasn't a bad way to spend a couple of hours - even if it's not something for which we would have chosen to drive 25 miles out of our way.
Another battle with The Loop, and the road system in general, and down to Gavere we headed, for no reason other than it being relatively nearby and that we could park there.
The most notable thing that we've found in Gavere is that the church is at the top of the hill. A hill! In Belgium! Okay, so it's not going to make its way into any hill lists, but the main road, which runs up it, has a noticeable slant to it.
Just a snap of a building in Gavere. Pity about the bag of rubbish in the empty fountain.
Our explorations of the town (dead - made us wonder if we are following closed-day from town to town) were followed by a stroll though the woods, adjacent to the car park, on a trail which has been recently resurfaced...
1.5km of trail made with wood chippings
...returning along the riverside.
It was rather pleasant to get back to Bertie. From the 15 degrees of two days ago, it's a biting 5 degrees today, so Bertie's interior (at all of 17 degrees) felt gloriously warm when we returned.
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