Kortrijk: De Broel Tower bridge
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We had taken the tandem to Waterloo the day before, split it to reduce the length as required to meet Eurostar's 'solo bikes only' regulations and registered it to Lille (for £20). We arrived at Lille around 2 pm and had no difficulty retrieving the tandem and re-assembling it in front of a bemused set of Eurostar travellers.
Leaving the ultra-modern but soul-less terminus, we cycled through cobbled streets of old Lille to the river Deule.We had intended to follow the river out of town but it wasn't quite as straightforward as it looked on the Google map and satellite view - there are a lot of factories and roadworks in the way and we ended up using roads for much of this initial section to Comines. Next time we'll find a route by secondary roads out of Lille.
At Comines we crossed the river Leie (La Lys in French), thus entering the flemish-speaking Belgian province of West Flanders (to our surprise, we had hoped to get the chance to use our French for at least a day or two). We followed the north bank as far as Wevelgem on a very good cycle track alongside the Leie, then crossing to the south bank to the edge of Kortrijk. Our hotel, the Groeninge, was easy to find and is very conveniently located forthe old town centre. Our tandem was accommodated inside the reception area because 'the garage is already full of bikes' - this turned out to be an exaggeration, one other pair of touring cyclists had arrived before us, but the owner's car occupied most of the garage.
Kortrijk was baldy damaged in both world wars, but it is very pleasant to wander around its carefully-pedestrianised centre with its narrow lanes, two excellent 13-15th century churches and a charming Begijnhof – a fine example of these Flemish/French tradional enclosed residential areas originally built in the 13th century for religious women (French: beguinage). We ended up eating in a reasonable Italian restaurant on the Grote Markt (big town square) after checking a rather unexciting row of restaurants, but we were introduced to an annoying local custom: almost all restaurants in Belgium refuse to serve tap water.
Today's distance: 49 km, weather: warm and dry, accommodation: Hotel Groeninge €70, good value.
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