The plan was to head down to Ypres , then on to Stuttgart, followed by two nights in Garmisch Partenkirchen.....
Fine weather down to Dover.. queueing for the DFDS ferry
Fine as far as Ypres where we got to the Menin Gate in plenty of time for the ceremony... and time for a beer beforehand
The local fire brigade play the last post every evening at 8pm... to remember the fallen of WW1.. This was done on my iphone
http://youtu.be/fvif8amSUbkA night in Ypres .... 9 mossies killed in the room before getting some kip... and all of them had fed on the previous occupants by the look of it
Next morning and a quick photo of the bike at the Menin Gate
We took the photo, and it was a bit overcast... and with 380 miles showing on the satnav to the next destination South of Stuttgart, off we went.... and within 10 minutes it was bucketing down... and continued to bucket down for over 150 miles towards Luxemburg... when we decided enough was enough...Pulled into services on the motorway , filled up... after having to pre-pay ( The Belgians appear not to trust anyone ) and got out the ipad... cancelled the bookings we had at the hotels for that night, Garmisch, and on the way back....
Found a hotel in Bruges, and decided 2 nights there was preferable to another 250 miles of pouring rain, and questionable weather near to the alps...
So.... 150 miles back to Bruges still bucketing down... hotel a bit basic but it did what we needed....
Bruges is very expensive..... 2 large Leffe beers 11 euro
Average 4 Euro's for any other beer....
This is the bell tower in the centre.... the top portion was added around 1450 ( the year not the time
)
The next day we decided to visit the Paschendaele museum.... not far from where we started off in Ypres.. This place was right on the front line..and the thought occurs to you that there must be thousands of still undiscovered remains in the area
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=passchendaele%20museum%20belgium&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.passchendaele.be%2Feng%2FhomeEN.html&ei=ND0JUv6wO-eM0wXPlIHwBQ&usg=AFQjCNEOBsmXQdhy9JOIgHusBizAWtXa3A&sig2=693_dTu3SNDAVU1y_tZjEw&bvm=bv.50500085,d.d2k Very impressive grounds
The museum is the house in the picture above, but there is an awful lot of it underground , and you pop out in to a re-created trench system
After that , back to Bruges to sit and have an expensive beer and people watch.....seems that football has the same loony followers everywhere, as Bruges were playing a Polish team, and there were lots of pissed up Polish supporters in the town .....some with their shirts off , doing a lot of chanting... Must be a genetic thing amongst football fans ( can you tell I'm not
)
Next day... cut our losses and headed back for the ferry...
In all 875 miles in 4 days , mostly motorway unfortunately... Bike never missed a beat....and showed 52.5 mpg on the computer :
showed 52.5 mpg on the computer
