Diekirch (Luxembourg) – Eupen (Belgium)

Today's Route

Last night we had a reckoning up of all the campsites we have stayed in so far – trying to decide on the worst and best of the bunch. Obviously you tend to be swayed by things such as price (free is always going to boost somewhere's ratings) and showers – but largely we agreed on the basics.

In the bottom slot we actually had a couple of contenders – Jon thought that the car park place we parked in at Grado in Italy was bad – and the first campsite we stayed at in Czech (“Your Car is not Safe”), whereas I thought the campsite in Heidelberg was the worst – although it did have the upside of being by the river, part of the site was like sleeping beneath an underpass, the showers were something else, and the grass hadn't been cut for months by the look of it. :)

Best campsites – Jon was a big fan of the one we stayed at in Austria by the lake on his birthday, I preferred the lake at St Dizier in France and the camp we did that night, the river stop was also a favourite (both of those were free though), but the Austria site definitely won for amazingness of facilities – flowers in the bathrooms and everything. Very upmarket.

Anyway.

We had sunshine this morning (we seem to get it either in the morning or the afternoon – not both), so we went out for a run. We ran along the river, crossed over a bridge and then ran back again – it was about 7km loop. I wanted to do a longer run today, so Jon packed it in after one loop, I carried on for a second. It was hard work – I haven't run more than about 45 minutes at a time since we have been away, so the 1hr 10 minutes I was out this morning – in the blazing sun with nothing but a coffee, a swig of water and a banana to fuel me was tough. Still. It's in the bank now.

Jon was internetting when I got back – so I had a shower and then managed to get just 20 minutes of the remaining internet time after that. This wasn't much time to do any blog – infact I only managed to do one day, which is quite frustrating. It was still sunny though. So not all bad. Oh, but I sat on my sunglasses and broke them – bugger. Lucky it was my £7 from Sainsburys sunnies – and they are from last year (so unfashionable), so maybe it was a blessing? Sorry to see them go though – they have been great.

We finally left the site at 2pm or so – heading off for Belgium. So many countries, so little time! Almost as soon as we set off the weather changed – the clouds rolled over and it started to rain. This is a common theme – so common in fact that I have pretty much stopped mentioning it (it's dull isn't it? Complaining about the weather?).

We crossed through the Belgian border without really realising – but, again, you could tell that something had changed. Most noticeably the roads were awful – and I mean really, really bad. Couldn't figure out why.

Decided not long after we had crossed into Belgium that we really needed to participate in the custom of the country – eating a cone of chips (with mayonnaise) purchased from a Friterie. Of course by this time we had passed about a zillion Friteries, and then once we decided we wanted chippies – we couldn't find anywhere selling them! Typical. Eventually though, we got lucky, and it was great.

Haven't had chips in a while (or at least that's what it feels like – is probably a total lie!) so they were really smashing – and the mayonnaise – mmmmmmmmmmm.

We passed through some pleasant looking Belgian towns – but the weather was grey and so there was nothing really to tempt us to stay (pleasant but not that pleasant). We ended up in the town of Eupen, not a bad looking place – but nowhere obvious to park up (in a previous town – Malmedy – I had spotted a camping car parking place, but we didn't really want to stay there – so we didn't make use of it), so we headed towards a lake that we could see on the map.

Went a few miles down this windy road and came out on top of a dam crossing the lake – van on dam as it were. As we turned the corner into the car park we saw that there were about 8 other campervans already parked up and looking settled for the night – so we perched in between a couple of the big ones, and set up. Perfect.

We had a bit of a wander about – there was a small bar/cafe thing, and a climbing wall (Jon seen here trying it out – just like Spiderman eh?), the dam and a big map of all of the marked routes and paths through the surrounding woodland – something for us to do tomorrow morning.

We had a small selection of Belgian beers with us to try out – obtained from the Carrefour in some random town we passed through. Actually, in that same Carrefour they had a whole load of “Top Bike” branded bike accessories, AND a super swanky £250 Top Bike Bike. Not as good as my Top Bike obviously – and the majority of the accessories were about as much as we had paid for my bike – but interesting all the same.

Interesting as well – they had some nice city bikes – you know, the sit up and beg type that they ride round these parts through town? I really fancy one of those as my van bike – so if we do get one (Holland is our favourite bet for that), what to do with Top Bike? Give it away (would anyone want it?) just abandon it? Doesn't seem right some how.

Anyway. Belgian beer – yes, very interesting. We had one that was cherry pop flavour – literally – I hadn't noticed that it was actually only 1% abv so it was a bit like cherry flavoured Shandy Bass (do they still sell that?) and, actually, I liked it :).

Then another one that was 7.2% and was interesting, and then finally we had some Olvo – which Jon poured in the true European way to produce a foaming top worthy of a blog photo!

Also we played games this evening – first time out for the amazing 6-in-1 games 'kit' that I bought in Tesco for the bargain £2.99. OK, so it's a bit (a lot) rubbish – but it does the job, and it was very funny when I opened it up first time and realised how rubbish it is. But then, what was I expecting for 3 quid?

Anyway. Snakes and ladders first up and the first game Jon kicked my ass – and I mean big time. This picture was taken at the end of that game, there had been no sliding down snakes or anything – he just raced up the board and won before I even got off the starting blocks. Luckily though, I clawed it back and won 2-1. Woo.

He won at Ludo though :(

Our lives – I tell you, it's none stop really.