This, our most colourful three-week cycling holiday, was also the coldest
and wettest. Our first trip into northeastern France, Belgium and a thin strip
of Germany (across the Rhine) covered over 1500 kilometres (960 miles).
We began by cycling through meadows and woods smothered in blooms and 16th-
century villages coloured hot pink and lime green. White predominated in the peaceful
Vosges mountains where snow closed some of the highest cols we had
planned to ascend. As we emerged from Alsace into Lorraine, we
entered a land of short, sharp hills, flowing with water which cures all pains
and fills a million blue plastic bottles. Spa towns, wedged into deep, narrow
valleys retain a flavour of past glories.
The comfort and decadence of these places are a contrast to the potent remains of
WWI battlefields. Ghosts still roam through the bluebell woods pocketed by
bomb-craters and trenches where the paths of enemies and allies crossed.
The hills of the Ardennes and the narrow roads of southern Belgium
took us through Flemish towns beautifully constructed in brick and slate and
eventually to the city of Lille. We returned, just as the warmth
of spring was emerging, and I longed to start the holiday anew.
|
