Sun is shining and the wind seems diminished (a bit) this morning in Antwerp. Hah! We will bike around for a bit of shopping and sight-seeing in Antwerp including the top of the modern Bonaparte Museum.
We head off on a 26 mile ride through the Flemish countryside.
Museum we went to the top of in Antwerp
Town square in Antwerp. Statue of legend of dragon chopping off hands. Another Tom story!
Entered a cathedral and saw 4 paintings by Peter Paul Rubens. Quite impressive!
Main altar in cathedral. Huge church!
Crossed under the river Schelde through a tunnel built in the 1930's. The tunnel is 90 feet down and we take either a escalator or elevator back up to the ground. Half took the elevator and I tried the escalator. Just had to make sure you squeezed the hand brakes so the bike didn't "run away".
Along the trail to Bazel.
Lunch in Bazel at The Dove Tower restaurant. Old family castle with dove tower that told the status of the land owner. Way back when, a family could have a pair of doves for each hectare of land that they owned. These guys had a lot of doves. Connie and I ate outside on the patio (the bagged lunch we prepared this morning) with Tom the guide and a couple others. The rest at a for real meal inside. After lunch Tom took us into the castle where we were able to see how a rich family lived back in the day.
Young Mercator and old Harvey
We then stopped at Ruplemonde (Mouth of the Rupel) where the courtyard had statues of Mercator (who developed the Mercator maps) - I have a large on in my study. The was also a tidal mill that captured water from the river at high tide and then returned it back to the river at low tide. When the water was being returned to the river a paddlewheel operated to grind grain.
On to Temse where we will crossed the river on a 1,000 meter long bridge (longest wooden bridge in Belgium. This is where the "two Richies" adventure really began. RIch Rediker and Richie Steingart had been lagging behind us for most of the day. They stopped to talk about their fathers' roles in WWII right under that bridge that they were supposed to cross. They somehow thought that they could continue further on on the "wrong" side of the river for a while and cross over later at another bridge. They took their time a stopped for some strawberries and D cell batteries (Don't ask). When they reached what they thought the map said was another bridge they were really at the confluence of the Schelde and Monde Rivers. They now realized that they either had to backtrack to the right bridge or figure out how to take what turned out to be two ferry boat rides to get to the correct side of the Schelde.
We had all finished at the quaint village of St. Armand's for quite a while before they appeared! St Armand's sits at a beautiful bend in the Schelde river and is quite a tranquil little town. The Manifique was waiting docked when we arrived. All was well that ended well, I guess.
It rained pretty good for the entire ride after lunch and we were all pretty wet and tired. Dinner was tomato soup, chicken with new potatoes and green beans strawberry crepe for dinner. The wind was up pretty good for most of the day as well! Hopefully tomorrow will be better.
So, 26 miles today and a scheduled 26 more miles tomorrow ending in the town of Ghent.
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