Zurich to Brussels Bike Trip Summary - We are Home

“Life is like riding a bicycle. In order to keep your balance, you must keep moving.” – Albert Einstein

Zurich to Brussels bike trip summary

Miles ridden: 1059.9 

Elevation gain: 23,925 ft.

# of Countries: 6 - Switzerland, Germany, Liechtenstein, France, Netherlands, Belgium

# of flat tires: 4

# of times the chain fell off: 3+, usually on a steep hill 

# of bicycle light malfunctions: 1, the back light started to have a mind of its own

# of diabetes monitoring device malfunctions: 0, yay!

# of items lost, broken, or left behind: 8 - A panier strap tore on one side of a bag, there is a hole in the middle of Joan's seat from wear against the metal bar below, the screws to hold the middle panier rack never got packed at home, the iPhone that we use for navigation only charges by sharing battery now

# of dogs that came running after us: 0. Germany had the most well-trained dogs that we have seen.

# of people asking us about the tandem, taking our picture, yelling out positive comments: hundreds

# of people who stopped to offer help when we stopped to check maps, fix tires or rest: 4+

Blessings to be thankful for on this trip:

• Pascal, our Brussels Airbnb host, for all the work that he did with Belgian customs to get our luggage just in time for us. Thank you, a million times, over!!! Also, Pascal later found a scale so that we can weigh our luggage since we usually are close to the max.
• Riding on dedicated well maintained bike trails for the majority of the trip while enjoying amazing scenery.
• Getting to meet so many other long-distance cyclists.
• Meeting and talking to so many kind people.
• Injury free trip except for some minor scrapes.
• Finding a bike shop that could help with our brakes and truing the wheel.
• Finding a hardware store in Zurich that could make a replacement bolt for us.
• Farmers in Switzerland, Germany, France, Liechtenstein, Netherlands and Belgium for growing so much corn. 
• The people that prayed for us before & during our ride.
• The thousands of smiles, waves, high-fives, thumbs ups, positive comments from all the great people along the way.
• Marla & Nick for Luna sitting.
• Cara & Nick for house & garden sitting.
• Annette & Mike Lochard for mowing our lawn.
• Marla & Nick for transporting us to the airport.
• Dr Darla for connecting us with Sebastian, Andreas & Margaret in Glandorf.
• Amazing weather. We only really got rained on while riding once. 
• The faithful readers of this blog that give Tony the incentive to keep doing 1/2 of it even when he really just wants to go to bed.

Our greeting party:

 Day 36 Brussels, Belgium - Last Day Before Flying Home

Joan's View

Today was a day to pack and get in one more of some of our favorites. 

One more delicious bakery for breakfast.

One more Belgian waffle.

One more picture of Mannekin Pis, but today dressed up for some reason.

One new picture of Jeanneke Pis, Mannekin's famous counterpart (the statue, not me 😆).

One more picture of some very important bicycles. These are the hard-working kind.

One more awesome sushi meal.

One more unusual feature of a water fountain.

Wonder what animal lives in that house?

P.S. There will be one more summary post from this trip when I get home. God bless!

Tony's Extras

Belgium has a very cool building for a beer museum called the world of beers. Check it out.

We did get the opportunity to visit more old churches today. The one had this statue of Jesus after being taken off the cross that I thought was intense. It shows clearly his five wounds. 

Well, we have the Uber set up for early morning, all bags are packed, and we are heading home.

 Day 35 Brussels, Belgium - Our Bags showed up, Yeah

Tony's View

Yes, the good news today the bags showed up, even though it cost us 250 Euros. The Belgium government charging us a tariff on our own luggage. But the bags are here, and we can go home on Thursday. We headed out to do some sightseeing and you can guess it, first stop a bakery.  Then off to another Cathedral. There are 3 Cathedrals within 15 miles of each other. One in Antwerp, Mechelen and Brussels. Amazing with them being so close and all having a Bishop chair. Today was another beautiful Cathedral. 

They had a cool pulpit with Saint Michael stabbing the serpent on the top of it. 

Beautiful side Altar for Mary also. 

This Cathedral had a lot of Royalty of Belgium tied to it. I took a picture of some of the Kings and Queens. 

We then headed to Notre-Dame des Victoires au Sablon, which is beautiful in its own right. 

We decided to check out the European Union Parliament and other buildings in that area. My blood sugar went low, so we got this picture.

We then went through a park which had sculptures by the comic artist Tintin. Can't say I ever heard of him before, but he must be very famous. He does have some funny sculptures. Here is one about eating ice cream. 

Then we had one that made me think of our Son-in -law Nick, friends Tisha, and Angie, all runners. 🤣🤣

Then one about out golf buddies, Eric and Jerry. I guess I could throw my brother Jerry in it too. 

I have to pick on Wade and the other son-in-law NIck. 

Joan decided to get on the bicycle one more time in the park.

We did get to see the Grand Place, a famous square.

One more church before we went back and started packing. It was called St, Nicholas. 

We went out to eat tonight before our beer experience. We were headed to another Belgium restaurant, but Joan spotted a Mexican restaurant, so we went there instead. 

As you can see, it didn't look that authentic. I sent a picture to our daughter-in-law Linda, and she said that when we come in two weekends, she would take us to Quesos. Jackpot!!!!

We made it to the Beer Experience and the thing I figured out was that Belgium was the first at craft beer as we know it. We had a great time tasting the beer. Joan would take a few sips and I would finish it. Another Jackpot. We only had 3 other people with us, 2 from Mexico and one from Brazil. Of course, Joan asked the two ladies if they knew where Linda was from, and they said yes. They had family from there. 

Here are the five beers we tasted. I could bore you with how each one was brewed, but I will save that for Dan when I see him next.

By the way, they told me some towns that we need to stop in for the Tour de Beer. 👍👍👍

Joan's Extras

Extremely grateful that we got our suitcases! It makes these 2 last days so much easier and relaxed.

Walking back from the beer tasting, we passed Mannekin Pis again, which is just down the street from our Airbnb. It seems like there is always a crowd at that corner whatever the time of day.

 Day 34 Brussels, Belgium - We Achieved Our Goal!

Joan's View

We slept in a little today because we had a shorter ride and it rained last night. The drier it is, the less gunk that gets on the bike. We are actually really fortunate that we had this window of no rain between last night and tonight. We did, however, have strong head winds, probably the strongest of our entire trip.

The streets of Antwerp were fairly quiet when we left. We rode along this ornate train bridge for almost a half mile. 

Most of the morning was on a long trail running parallel to a train track. At one point we rode onto an X bridge for bicycles. We have seen Y bridges, but this one had 4 corners that you could get on or off with a big median in the middle, so we named it an X bridge. 

At one point along our ride, we were impressed by this billboard just for the bike trail. We realized after we rode a little farther that a train station was nearby with another full bicycle parking lot. Makes sense from looking at all of those hundreds of bikes in the parking lot why they put the billboard on the trail.

This next picture is a view of a newer section of the bicycle trail. It looks like a road lined for automobiles, but it really was just for bikes.

We took a few breaks. One was at a yummy bakery closer to Brussels. 

While eating our fresh bakery treats, Tony spotted two Crown trucks. It's such a small world!

Riding into Brussels, the route took us along a somewhat creepy warehouse district along the water. You know, the kind you see in the movies. We were the only bike on that route. We knew that we had to turn right up ahead to get to the other side of the river, but when we got to the bridge, it was no more. Tony searched for an alternate route while I watched the metal junkyard cranes. 

 

We rode along a busier street for several miles. The interesting part is how many trucks and trailers were parked along the highway. Some seemed like they were there for months. You can see our bike lane next to the parked vehicles.

As we got closer to the center of the city, it became probably the trickiest steering adventure yet. Navigating people walking in all directions, cyclists turning every which way, scooters cutting in and out, construction detours, and figuring out where to go because the bike path turned from street to sidewalk and back and forth. It kept us both on high alert. 

We were both relieved when we got to our Airbnb. Pascal, our host, met us and invited us into his house for drinks. He gave us an overview and recommendations of Brussels. We also covered what steps he has been doing with Belgium customs to get our luggage. He had to pay the 220 Euros on Friday to get them released so we are just praying that we will have our suitcases before we leave on Thursday. 

Tony started to disassemble the tandem and we were both getting hungry. We decided on one of the authentic Belgian restaurants recommended by Pascal, Nuet Nigenough. Turns out they were celebrating their 15th anniversary, so we got free pork croquettes and a stout beer aged in wine from Italy. Truly unique!

Our Airbnb is close to the famous Manneken Pis (Peeing Boy Statue) so we got a picture on our way back for your enjoyment.

Over 1,200 miles and we made it!

Tony's Extras

We made it. Too bad our luggage isn't here yet. We will see if it shows up tomorrow or Wednesday. If not, planning will start and will happen fast. Just seems to be part of our Europe Saga of getting our bags delivered. The ride into Brussels was by far the most intense route we have ever had. Starting with the out of service lift bridge and a completely different detour out in the traffic. We then ended up in a pretty rough part of town. I am pretty sure we went through North Brussels Red Light District. It was intimidating. Here is what I found on the internet about this area. Street walkers are around this whole area. But BE CAREFUL: This part of town is not clean and feels not safe. It is full of graffiti and street people. I can verify that, and I was dodging broken glass all over the place. 

My dinner was ham and it showed up as a ham on a bone. It was delicious and I never had ham this way. Hoping for luggage tomorrow and out to see Brussels.

Day 33 Antwerp, Belgium - Experiencing Belgium 

Tony's View 

We started our Sunday with Mass in the Cathedral of Our Lady. It is a beautiful Cathedral. Here is a picture of the Assumption. This picture and others in the Cathedral are by a famous local artist Peter Paul Rubens.

Here are some other cool pictures inside the Cathedral. 

This is a picture of the Tabernacle which resembles the Art of the Covenant. It seems to be of solid gold. 

Here are some pictures from Rubens. This one is the Raising of the Cross.

Here is Ruben's Decent from the Cross. Notice the look of Christ's dead skin, a strong contrast to the lifelike skin. 

There was a wonderful side altar to Mary. We did light a couple of candles here. 

Outside the Cathedral was a crane lifting bicycles way up into the air, probably a good view. 

We then ate some authentic Belgium Fries. The lady there became Joan's friend and told us where to get famous Belgium Waffles and Belgium Chocolate. 

Here is where we got some chocolate. Joan even got one called a chocolate kiss for her new friend at the Belgium Fries place.

Then we got some authentic Belgium Waffles. While sitting there, I took a picture of Joan with the Cathedral in the background. 

We then got some local flavor gelato. They only had 8 flavors. I got Raspberry Thyme and Mint Lime. The Mint Lime tasted like a Mojito. What unique flavors, but very good. The gelato had lids on it, which Joan noticed and that is why we stopped. We learned in Italy with Wade and Linda that if they have lids, it will be very good. It was excellent. 

On the way back we went by a bar which featured Covid shots. What a great idea. 

Joan's Extras

We did quite a bit of walking today on our "rest day." This weekend is called "Antwerpen Shift" which means there are car-free zones throughout the city. Lots of street fairs and people out and about. We stopped to look at a bicycle vendor tent that had a European bicycle similar to ours. Tony got more ideas.

The guy in the picture below though has probably the most unique bicycle we have ever seen. He played it well too.