Category: Uncategorized

Flèche Wallone 2026 and Fat Sheep and Cows

We left Hamoir around 9:00 the next morning and went to the town of Marchin, which is where we watched La Flèche Wallone from in 2019.  They’ve made some changes to the main square, so instead of being able to park in it we ended up on the road beside the church – no big deal.

We were parked right beside a large field, and first some very fat woolly brown sheep came to a feeder/water trough nearby, then a while later some very fat – and fat assed – cows came over.  They seemed to all be females, but didn’t look like they were producing milk as their udders weren’t full.

We walked around a bit and tried the local cafe that is right across from the main square but wouldn’t you know – they’re closed on Tuesdays.  Oh well – we went back to the campervan and made our own lunch and beverages.

It was a pretty quiet night – the church bells quit ringing around 10:00 pm  and don’t start up again until 7 in the morning – then at 8 they go a bit crazy as if to catch up or something.

As the cafe was open we went in around noon and had a drink before going back for our cameras and picking our spots.  The race at this point does a large loop, through Marchin then onto the Mur de Huy – aka the Wall of Huy.  We paid attention to the locals, and gathered at the corner when they did.

After the first pass I was one of the first back to the cafe to get a refreshing beverage and watch the race progress on the big screen.  Same for the second pass – Colin stayed in the campervan but I went to the corner again, then into the cafe again.  I didn’t have to ask for a glass of wine – he was ready to pour it as I approached the bar.

After the last pass – same thing, although this time it was more crowded than ever.  I did manage to get a seat and watched the end of the race with two lovely older Belgian gentlemen.

It was quite exciting, even though it wasn’t a Belgian that won, but very young up-and-coming (future superstar) French rider Paul Seixas – certainly one to watch over the next years.

To the Netherlands and Amstel Gold – Also ‘No Chicken’!

The morning after the Brabantse Pijl race we drove to a nearby campground where they allowed you to dump and fill for a small fee – it should have been a two minute drive but took closer to 20 minutes because of yet another fondo/sportif that was clogging up the roads and causing diversions.

We crossed into the Netherlands just south of Maastricht and tried to find a spot near where we were seven years ago in the town of Berg.  Alas most of the roads are closed for guess what??? – A fondo/sportif!  And there are ‘no parking’ signs everywhere.  We eventually found a decent spot on a ‘country road’ and I’d just started making roast chicken drumsticks for lunch when a police car pulled beside us and very politely told us we’d have to move.

We spent the next fourty minutes or so driving along the route and ended up choosing a small town that the race will only come through once but had a nice open car park within walking distance of cafes and restaurants.

We took a short walk and stopped at the first cafe/restaurant we came to – they had a nice outdoor seating area so we chose a table and sat down.  We were shocked by the prices of things – I could get three bottles of red wine in France for the price of one glass here but we haven’t been out much lately so decided to just enjoy it.  We also ordered some food, although the menu was puzzling – and not just because it was in Dutch.  There were several items that specified ‘no chicken’ and that really confused me – did so many people ask for chicken that they had to put it on the menu that those dishes didn’t have chicken?  I did end up asking about the croquettes – they had two on the menu and one had a vegetable I’d never heard of and the other had a weird sounding fruit in it.  I asked if they perhaps had just a plain cheese croquette and that’s when we were told – no – it’s actually a vegan cafe!   Hahaha – no wonder there was no chicken in anything – it was the vegan version of chicken that was NOT chicken!  We both ended up getting a basket of fries and they were pretty good – as usual I could only eat about ⅓ of mine and took the rest home for breakfast.

After retiring early for the night I woke up just after midnight to hear pouring rain – it just tipped down for at least a couple of hours.  I hoped that it didn’t continue for the race during the day.

Because the race was expected to arrive around 1:00 we went for a morning walk and had a drink at a different restaurant.  The prices were no lower than at the one the day before, although the wine was once again good.  I could never afford to live in a place like this – the cost of wine alone would bankrupt me!

Not long after 12:30 we put our lawn chairs out at the edge of the road and the locals started to gather also.

Right on the projected schedule the first riders appeared just before 1:00, with the rest of them arriving all in one bunch about four minutes later.

Right near the front of the peloton was Remco, surrounded by several of his team mates.

The entire group came and went in less than a minute.  We weren’t able to watch the whole rest of the race on tv as the coverage didn’t start until almost 3:00, although we did get to see the last 80 km or so.  Remco won in a thrilling sprint against last year’s winner Danish rider Mattias Skjelmose.

We had a second fairly quiet night in the car park, then left after breakfast around 8:30 the next morning.

We didn’t have that far to go on Monday, crossing back into Belgium and passing by Liège then a little further south to a camping-car place that was very basic but did have dumping and filling.  It was in a beautiful area and was very peaceful and quiet.

It was next to a small river and also had a nice paved cycling/walking path – we walked Max for a bit but didn’t really go very far before we turned back for the night.

On to Da Brabantse Pijl – With a Quick Stop at Waterloo

After a surprisingly quiet night we headed out on Monday morning for the campground in Zwalm, where we did some more laundry and had (somewhat) hot showers.

We decided that we’d stop and watch De Brabantse Pijl on our way to the Netherlands for Amstel Gold.  Because we were going right past it anyway we stopped again to visit one of the main sights of the Battle of Waterloo – the farmhouse at Hougoumont.  

While Colin and Max took a walk to explore more I stayed and made a lovely poached salmon and rice lunch.  Since our last visit seven years ago one of the three main old trees had come down, and the other two are still being held up by wires.

Colin said you can still see some of the actual musket balls embedded in the trunks.

We spent Wednesday night at the shores of the lovely lake ‘Meer van Gembal’ – it’s a very beautiful and prosperous looking area.

There’s a large hotel on the other side of the lake that looked like it might have been pretty fancy at one time.

And if we hadn’t already had the delicious salmon lunch we might have been tempted to get a Chinese take-away from another restaurant close by – the aroma wafting over to us was enticing.

There were a couple of geese – Canada Geese, if I’m not mistaken! – one of which was keeping a close watch on all passers by.

We made our way the next morning to the course of Branbantse Pijl and found a nice wide paved area just past one of the climbs.  The road we were on was a bit busy but we did manage to get a good night’s sleep.

The women’s race came by first – a total of four times…

…followed over an hour later by the first of three passes by the men.

As usual now we went back into the campervan to watch the end on tv.

Monument 3 – The Hell of The North (aka Paris-Roubaix)

We got going very early to get a spot on the Paris-Roubaix route – it wasn’t that far and we found the route no problem and just followed the arrows.  In 2019 we were on sector 12 of the cobbles but this time we ended up on sector 11 (they count down, not up).  This sector is one of the three in the race that have a five-star black rating – the hardest of all.

It wasn’t easy to find a good place – there were already dozens of campervans in almost every available spot.  We ended up backing up into a fairly lumpy place that was infested with what we believe to be Japanese knotweed – at least we were off the road and not on a farmer’s field.  

During the day on Friday several of the main teams rode by perusing the course, then some official folks came around during the afternoon and roped us in by pounding metal spikes into the ground and threading a rope through a loop at the top of each.

On Saturday there was a huge fondo/sportive and thousands of amateurs came by over a period of eight or nine hours.  Max watched it all from his position in the co-pilot’s chair.

By race-day Sunday there were hundreds of cars and campervans, and a constant stream of fans going up and down the cobbles in front of us.

The atmosphere was awesome!

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Some folks even had a wood-fired hot tub – not kidding!

The junior men came by first, followed an hour or so later by the under-23 men.  We retreated to the campervan for cheeseburgers and to watch on tv as the race progressed, then went out in plenty of time to stake our spots to photograph from.

As we’d known from the tv coverage the two leaders were Pogacar and van Aert and neither one looked like they were having fun.  Mads Pederson was right behind them…

…and Van der Poel wasn’t too far behind him – he’d had a bike problem earlier so was not at the front with the other two where he might have expected to be.

After most of the racers had passed we went back inside the campervan to watch the end on tv.  It was close enough but van Aert is a better sprinter than Pogacar so he was triumphant in the velodrome in Roubaix – I think he was crying as he crossed the line in first place.  Cheers from the local crowd around us were almost deafening – we’re not far from the Belgian border and most of the fans along this stretch of the cobbles were Belgian.

I was impressed by how many folks stayed to watch the women come through – hardly anyone had left.  After that I took Max for his evening walk, and we went and visited a group down the road.  They were from Paris which is only a two hour drive away, and they were very nice – they especially liked Max.

They’d taken some of the rope down and we’re playing skip-rope in the middle of the cobbles – it went fairly well with one girl, then two skipping but when the guys jumped in it didn’t last too long.  They fed Max a bit of sausage that I don’t think he liked too much, and I smelled something very fragrant being smoked, although I didn’t ask to partake.

It was a fairly early night, and for the second time in two days our electrics ran out.  We have a good solar panel and battery but it hasn’t been very sunny and since we had the tv on all day and we’ve not driven for two or three days the system just shut itself down.

Monument 2 – La Ronde

The next day was fairly quiet as more and more campervans arrived.  The farmer that we’re parked across from has made a bit of a business letting campervans into his courtyard and along the side road on his property – there are at least 19 of them and I do hope he’s making a bit of cash.

The day before the race I decided to take a hike a few km down to Ronse along some very small side roads to get some essentials from Lidls, and partway along I realized that it was going to be a challenge to walk back all uphill with a full backpack.  I did get my purchases in Lidls, then asked the cashier where I might get a taxi from.  She asked if I had a smart-phone and when I said no – I had no phone at all – everyone in line looked very surprised and a bit bug-eyed.  Realizing that I was going to be out of luck I turned around and said quite loudly ‘I will pay anyone to take me 4 km to the N425’.  The couple right behind me in the line said they would be happy to take me and we all went out to their small two-door car and climbed in.  They had to make an extra stop at Aldi’s then we were on our way.

It turned out that where I needed to go was on their way home so it was perfect.  Along the N63 we started to see many amateur riders coming down the road, and were not able to turn right where I needed to go but it was okay as I could see our campervan not far along.  I profusely thanked  Sandra and Austin for their kindness – they declined any payment – and walked the short distance to the campervan.

The amateur riders continued passing us for about six hours!  I remember in 2019 there were thousands of them heading towards the Paterberg, and it doesn’t seem to have diminished in numbers over the years.  We read later that there were over 14,000 of them!  Very sadly one rider died, although it seems it was a heart attack (or something) rather than a collision or accident.

We had a nice night, although the wind did pick up a bit and it rained lightly in the morning.

The Tour of Flanders – or La Ronde (Ronde van Vlaanderen) – is this year 278 km long and is the second ‘Monument’ of the year, and the first time it passed us was just after 1:30…

…then everyone went back to their campervans for lunch, or to watch the race on tv.

An enterprising little girl setup a pastry table in our midst and did a roaring business – her dad had done the baking and they were very reasonably priced – also delicious!

The second time around they came down the road rather than up, and four of the five favourites were all together – van der Poel, Pogacar, Pederson and Evenepoel.

Before the third time past us a bunch of official photographers parked just up the road and congregated in the fields to get their shots…

…

The last time past us were – guess who in the lead??  Pogacar and van der Poel, with Evenepoel not too far behind.

We watched the end of the race on tv and Pogacar won (for the third time)!  Van der Poel came second and Evenepoel was a respectable third, with Van Aert and Pederson making up the top five – a very very good race!  The predictions by most of the pundits before the race all had those five in the mix – it’s hard to deny who the very best riders are.

A few hours later there was a convoy of trucks coming down the road – the VIP party planner folks were already on their way – literally dozens of them.

Then there was rush hour at the chicken coop – some wanting to get in for the night and others just taking their time.

Evening came…

…and we settled in for the night.

Gent Wevelgem…In Flanders Fields

Early the next morning – before even having a cup of tea! – we started searching for a good place for Sunday’s Gent Wevelgem – which is now renamed ‘In Flanders Fields’.  We circled a bit before ending up about 50 metres from where we watched from last year.  The nice paved pullout should have held three campervans but the two that were already there had spaced themselves out so a third couldn’t get in.  We figured they were waiting for a friend and would reposition themselves later.  We did park on a smaller (not paved) area just down the road so it wasn’t too bad.

Saturday was pretty quiet, although the road is a bit busier that might be expected.  One of the highlights was a family taking their alpacas (or they might have been llamas) out for a walk.

Many campervans passed by us during the day, fruitlessly searching for a place to park.

We had a delicious lunch of roast duck with roast potatoes and fresh green beans.  It was a big hit and I think I’ll have to make it again.

I tried to explain the significance of the area in WWI to a friend but just started choking up and crying.  So much suffering for what?  Then again just over 20 years later…insanity.  And now – thanks to the absolute idiot in the White House – another one started?  How stupid – what a fucking moron!

On race day Sunday as usual there was a constant parade of cyclists and fans walking past us towards the Kemmelberg climb.

The race passed right by our spot twice, and the third time came down a side road from the left, climbing the Kemmelberg three times in all.

The first time we both walked down the road a bit, and some ‘VIPs’ arrived via helicopter.

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When we returned to the campervan before the second pass we discovered a bit of a mess – we know that Max doesn’t like being left alone, and he made it very clear.  He’d managed to pull the garbage bag out of the door-bin and had shredded it to bits, with all of the contents spread over the floor, including mushy raspberries that had gotten ground into the mat.  However – it was pretty hard to reprimand him when I was laughing so hard.

For the second pass of the race we stayed right around where we were parked…

For the last time around Colin stayed in the campervan while I went back down to the side road the riders were coming from.

The crowd was totally psyched by the knowledge that Wout van Aert and Matthieu van der Poel were in a two man lead, and when they came into sight the fans went crazy.

I waited until most of the riders had passed before heading back to the campervan to watch the end of the race on tv with Colin.  Neither van Aert nor van der Poel won but they hung on until almost the end, and another Belgian rider did win – Jesper Phillipsen – and it was very exciting.

As it was going to get dark soon we chose to stay where we were and spent another night in our little spot – there were some quite strong winds at times but we were snug and warm.

From Poggio to E3-Saxo

We spent another quiet night in the parking lot on the Poggio before heading west to France then north towards Belgium.

The first night we stayed at a very nice place in Digne-Les-Bains on the lovely river Bleone.

We passed through some beautiful countryside – it was quite cold and included snow.

We stopped for a quick break for a coffee and a small bite to eat at one of the many parking areas along the motorway.  It had a very nice monument to WWII – we tried to look it up and it seems there was some sort of ambush of Nazis there, and then retribution fell on the locals.

That night we found another beautiful aire/sosta that was on the bank of the Moselle river just past the city of Nancy.

The night was chilly but quiet and we had a very good sleep.

The next morning didn’t go as planned – we managed to drop the grey water, but the toilet canister wouldn’t come out.  You can’t manage very long in a campervan without a toilet!  We got some direction from an old local fellow who advised us to go back towards Nancy and we would find a service place.

He was correct – we found a great campervan sales/service place right off the motorway and they took us in and we were out again in about two hours with a new toilet canister!  Off again towards Belgium with only a couple of hours lost.

We had one night at an aire that was the parking area of an abandoned quarry, and another at an aire next to a sports centre near Tellin/Resteigne.

We ended up at the campground in Zwalm (where we’ve been a few times before) by noon on Thursday, and were able to eat lunch, shower and do laundry.

Luckily the campground also has two clothes dryers so we weren’t left with a bunch of wet laundry in the campervan.  After a nice night – with lots of intermittent rain – we left early Friday morning to find where we wanted to watch E3-Saxo from.

We found the route fairly quickly and ended up choosing a place on the large paved parking area of a local football (soccer) club.  It was just past the top of the Kapelberg climb and just before a sharp corner towards the Paterberg.

I went for what ended up being a very long walk looking for a store, or even a cafe/bar to no avail even though I went through more than one village and was never far from houses.  What do folks do around here if they want a coffee or a litre of milk? 

Anyway right after I returned to the campervan the bar at the football club opened so we headed right in there.  Asking for red wine in a country that has over 150 kinds of beer was a bit puzzling to them, but they did manage to dig a bottle out from their storage shelves.  It was quite good – from South Africa – but not cheap!

As the race wasn’t passing us until after four we returned to the campervan for lunch – on the way out we asked if we could buy the remainder of the bottle of wine to take with us – deal made (again – not cheap).

After lunch we went back to the bar to watch on their big tv as the race started and approached.  Quite a few other folks arrived as well and the bar was doing a fairly good business.  As soon as the riders were getting near we all trooped outside to line the small road to cheer as they passed.

My photos are kind of crappy but Colin got some good ones.  Once again we all trooped back into the bar to watch the end on tv – there was quite a ways to go so we were in there for a while.

Shortly after the race ended we got going west, stopping at one of the many Lidl’s on the way.  We made it to the town of Kemmel and decided to stay in a car park there rather than attempting to find a spot on Sunday’s route in the dark and rain.

On to Poggio!

Rather than drive 100 miles south to watch the next stage of TA  live on Sassotteto we decided to just stay where we were and watch it on tv.  It was a good choice, as we were heading north afterwards and it meant several hours less driving south then north again.

We ended up taking the coast road north to Ravenna, then going northwest towards Ferrara.  Miss GPS took us on a fairly ‘scenic route’ but we eventually made it to the west coast around Imperia.  After that it was a bit dicey – we wondered if Miss GPS was punishing us for not listening to her at times in the last couple of days or maybe she was going through menopause and was just being super bitchy.  In any case she totally mis-directed us near the end of the day when we were trying to find an aire on the coast and we ended up inland on the side of a mountain.  Not usually a problem for us but I was a bit pissed off at her – anyone that has been led astray by any GPS system will know how we felt!  We did know fairly quickly that we weren’t going where we wanted to but decided to see where we ended up.

We did get on our way the next morning in the right direction – having muted Miss GPS – and arrived at our destination of the campground at Santo Stefano Al Mare that we’ve been to several times before.

I can’t describe how lovely the shower was, and we got to do laundry too – truly wonderful to be clean and have clean clothes at the same time!

The campground has some very nice cats that I happened to catch sunning themselves on the roof of the office as we left.

A short drive got us to Poggio – one of the most iconic climbs in cycling races.

It’s not long (only 3.7 km) and not steep (average 3.7% grade) but very important in the first Monument of the year – Milano SanRemo – La Primavera.

There’s been some improvements done in the general area…

…and more still ‘in progress’…

…

We had lunch in the local cafe/bar on race day – we thought we’d ordered roast rabbit but ended up with roast pork.  I was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t rabbit, but since I do like pork it was ok.

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There were at least three different police forces on hand, in addition to ‘Mr. Whistle’ who thinks he runs everything.

Colin and I, as usual, went to different places to watch and photograph from.

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I was lucky and had a couple of fellows next to me that had the race on their phone – I watched over their shoulders as Pogacar, Pidcock and Van der Poel took off on the Cipressa.

By the time they reached us Van der Poel had been dropped and it was only the two in front.

Because the finish was only down the hill I really wanted to run across the road to the bar to watch the end on tv but the cops wouldn’t let me – I settled for watching it on another fellow’s phone – Pogacar won!!  I could hear screaming and cheering from the bar and I was screaming just as loud – so happy!

Leaving Trasimeno/Papiano/Trevi and on to Tirreno-Adriatico Stage 5

Leaving Asciano early – without breakfast or even a cup of tea (because of lack of electrics again) – we stopped in Castigliano del Lago for groceries.  There was some kind of race going on – it looked like a walking/running race perhaps around the lake.  After we parked once again at the aire in San Feliciano I saw one of the runners – looking fairly fit, but puffing on a vape as he ran.

The aire was almost totally packed – most of them likely here for the race.  There also were two tour buses that pulled up and discorged several dozen old folks who proceeded to amble along the lakeside promenade into the town.  I was walking Max at the time and the volume of them seemed to intimidate him a bit – we decided to return to the camperan rather than venture into the village for tea.

I do have a comment about the lake…Trasimeno is the third largest lake in Italy and you can literally see the perimeter of the entire lake from where we are.  The surface area of the lake is just over a third of that of Okanagan Lake, and overall that’s around 350 square km.  In contrast Lake Superior is over 82,000 sq km of surface area.

It doesn’t mean one is more beautiful than the other, however, although Trasimeno does have a slightly more violent history.  Hannibal played a trick on the Romans when he was invading, and they killed so many Romans that part of the lake turned red with their blood.  Also, in WWII the Canadians broke through the Nazi line on the west side of the lake in one of many battles on the Allies’ way up from the south.

We met the new estate agents at the house in Papiano on Tuesday afternoon.  Basically the woman spent most of her time making excuses for the lack of attention to the terrace.  This is how the terrace should look…

…and this is how it looks now:

Screenshot

In the meantime I took the fellow outside with me and played ‘bad cop’ ranting about the terrace to the poor guy for about 15 minutes.  I think we got it through to them that we weren’t happy and that something had to be done – as we had requested several times.

We left Papiano for Trevi, where we spent a couple of nice nights at the aire there, and had a lovely lunch at one of our favourite restaurants – La Vecchia Posta.  We both wanted the roast wild boar but were told that that needed to be pre-ordered so settled for the wild boar ragout pasta instead, which was, of course, delicious.

We left after two nights for Fossombrone to find the route for stage 5 of Tirreno Adriatico.  Miss GPS took us on a route we hadn’t been on before, and it was just beautiful – lots of lovely little towns and wide green valleys.  Even the road surfaces weren’t too bad!

We found, as usual, an excellent place to park on one of the climbs for a couple of nights and settled in to wait for the race the next day. There are lots of deer and wild boar around here – I think we hear the wild boars sometimes at night, and I’ve seen several deer in the field across the way in the late evening.

Race morning was not bad – not so much wind, and not raining.

Coverage on the tv didn’t start until right around where we were, but as usual all of the police motos and the helicopter…

…let us know when the riders were near.

Alaphillipe was in the breakaway of seven or eight, with the peloton following around 5 minutes behind.  Colin lucked out as the EF rider threw his bidon directly to him – it was the one he wanted the most this year.

After the last rider had passed we retired into the campervan and watched the last half of the race on tv.

From just down the road you can see Fano (I think) and the Adriatic Sea in the distance.

Papiano Terrace Dismay – and Strade Bianche!!

When we visited the house in Papiano we were dismayed to see the state of the terrace – it’s so covered in ivy it looks like the little house is being eaten!  The lovely terrace is one of the best features of the house and the estate agents have let it go to shit – despite several requests from Colin to please have it tended.

We made an effort for over an hour – having brought some gardening tools with us, but it was just too much for us.  A meeting with the agent and a demand to get some help are in order!

After our disappointment with the house we stopped for lunch at Monte Buono on our way back to the aire on the lake – the food was delicious as usual, with me taking home over half of my seafood lasagne for tomorrow’s breakfast.

Later that afternoon I took Max for a walk and visited the small supermarket to get some essentials (ok – wine!!).  At the checkout there was a man ahead of me that was purchasing one bottle of beer – the cashier opened it for him and he had it half finished by the time he was out the door.  Then Max – the little moocher that implies to everyone that he never gets fed – got a nice little piece of the next fellow’s salami sandwich.

We decided to get to Asciano nice and early so headed there on Thursday to spend the night in the local aire, before going to our favourite place to watch Strade Bianche.  It’s partway along the section named for Fabian Cancellero – or maybe just a bit past it.

We got to the space before 9 in the morning and there was only one campervan already there – he was parked in an awkward way and took the space of probably three others but we had plenty of room so it wasn’t our problem.

Several more campervans joined us throughout the day – two of them were related to each other so it’s nice that they both got a space.  Sometime in the late evening our electrics started failing – apparently we can’t watch tv all day and charge all of our devices and expect the solar panel and battery to carry it all – bummer!  We spent the night with no lights available for loo trips but made it through ok.  Within an hour or so of the sun rising on race-day morning the battery was almost recharged and we were okay for the rest of the day – although we did try to not run too many things at the same time.

The campervan next to us had a little boy – maybe about four or so – he was just adorable and one of the local farmers took him for a ride around the fields on his caterpillar/tractor.

Race day started out nice and sunny, and the usual parade of amateur riders and fans started to pass by.  One family were quite obviously Pogacar fans – even the little girl’s face had a Slovenian flag painted on it.

Because we’d been able to get the starlink back up we knew when the race was nearing us and who was in front – but we didn’t really need the tv as we could see the helicopters and the motos were racing past us, and the dust was rising on the road as they approached.

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The first to pass us were three riders from UAE – with Pogacar in the middle of two team-mates.  It was quite dusty and the wind direction had unfortunately changed – the flags were hanging better but the dust got everywhere!

We saw on the tv that Pogacar made his move on one of the next climbs, ending up once again going solo for many miles before winning for the fourth time – well done!

We stayed until the end of the race before taking down our flags, saying farewell to our neighbours and going back to the aire in Asciano for the night.  Once again we’d drained the electrics a bit but it was quite alright for the night.