Bikepacking Belgium day 10; Gent, Brugge & Oostende

#gravelbike #bikepacking #Belgium #wannagobiking #gent #brugge #oostende
Hi and welcome to WannaGoBiking. My name is Arjan and it is time for a new cycling adventure!
Time to do a proper visit to our friendly neighbors to the south: Belgium.
As temperatures rose to a whopping 38 degrees, I decided against cycling the whole route. Instead, I took trains from Gent to Brugge and from Burgge to Oostende.
Hope you like it, Enjoy your rides and stay safe out there !

Theme Music by:
* Le plat pays- jacques Brel
* Remedy- Mimmi Bangoura
*Bumpy- Timothy Infinite

Chapters:
intro 00:00
Gent 00:30
Brugge 03:50
Oostende 09:30
the route 11:00

What a stunning place. This is really really fabulous. Hi and welcome to WannaGobiking from beautiful Gent where I’ve just decided to change my plans completely as today ride was going to go from Gent over Brugge towards Oostende but it’s set to be 36 to 38° which is way too much to me so I’m going to take a train but not before I do a little bit of highlight touring here in Gent because yeah, it’s a super beautiful city and I’ve not been here in 35 to 40 years. So,  yeah, let’s go and chase some highlights. What a view. So Gent definitely does not disappoint. Crazy beautiful buildings. So cool. Hell hole. Oh boy. That’s nice. Lush garden in the middle of the 
city. Well, unfortunately, I don’t have the time to explore it because I have to vacate my  lodging for today in- well 45 minutes. So, yeah, but it’s such a beautiful city and I should be making my way to Brugge or Bruges, another of course beautiful city. So yeah, let’s do that. See you later. So that completes the sort of highlight 
tour , the very short highlight tour of Gent. I am certain there’s so much more to see, but yeah, it is already it’s what 10:30 now and well very close to 30° and the humidity is skyhigh as well. So, I am going to try and find a train, head to Brugge and then we’ll take you from there. See you later. Here we are. Just left the railway station in Brugge. And so these are the first houses we see here. This could be actually a begijnhof as well. I’m not quite sure. Some sort of convent maybe. Could be. We’ll see. I have a vague recollection of this I think I’ve must have been here with my school 40 years ago. Oh well, it makes sense. That would be vague then a beautiful and tranquil place. So I believe the purpose of a Begijnhof is to have women go here and do some daily chores maybe even some industrial work, a bit of religion as well and incorporate all of that. So it was not necessarily a strictly religious sect or cult or anything but there’s certainly a religious component to it but it was sort of semi secular semi religious I would say unless I’m wrong and in which case I will rectify myself somewhere right I think we’ll be heading downtown now for lunch; hopefully shelter and some refreshing lemonade cuz yeah I am constantly drinking and constantly Thirsty, which is not not a surprise at 36-38°. All right, see you later. This place is truly amazing. It’s no wonder there’s so many tourists Wow. What a stunning place. Oh, this is really really fabulous amazing. Oh, this is worth gold now bit of shade. What is this? Another cool tower. Doesn’t quite say what it is but I might look it up. But not now, cuz jeez, it’s hot. Another beautiful square. Yay. So, this is the big marketplace here. What a beautiful place. Yay. More shade. Shade is good. It’s a bit like we have up north in Groningen province: Appingedam, we call them hanging kitchens. Ah, cool. Bit of a contrast here. Concert building blacksmith gate Execution of a traitor. Oh, that’s not good. That’s definitely one way to be remembered if you’re traitor and your skull gets hung up there forever. I think that’s the last piece of culture for today. At least in Gent and brugge I have no idea what Oostende brings, but I’m going to jump on a train to Oostende now. See you later. So, here we are: Oostende. It’s noticably cooler. That looks like a good idea. So, a mere 30° here. That’s a lot better. We are in Oostende the end of – well I would say- to today’s ride but it’s been a crazy day. So yeah taking the train to Brugge first and now to Oostende well it’s very nice to explore Gent and Brugge and tomorrow hopefully when temperatures are sort of back to normal then we go back to Ieper and  stay there for a couple of days before I start yet another adventure. But more on that later. So for now I’ll say thanks for watching. Enjoy your rides and stay safe out there. Now, you can’t say it’s a pretty coast line now, can you? I think the whole of the Belgian coastline, which is what, 50k long, is like this. So, yep.