Days 11-12 – Hiding out the storm in Luxembourg: Stenay to Luxembourg City
Thursday January 15, 2015, 87 km (54 miles) – Total so far: 945 km (587 miles)
Day 11: Stenay to Luxembourg City – 86.6km
The night passed fairly smoothly, my sleeping bag and thermarest keeping me reasonably warm considering the frozen ground underneath me. Packing up everything in the morning took a full hour and a half. The biggest part of this was the tent. My fingers would go numb every time I started taking it down so I had to do it in different stages waiting for the feeling to go back into my hands before I started the next part of packing it up. When I had the tent packed and the feeling finally back in my hands again I made my way back out of the woods and onto the fireroad. I made a less than graceful leap over a ditch and landed knee first down in some mud. For the record the chances of successfully jumping over a ditch while carrying a 45kg bike are minimal. Luckily no one was around to see me embarrassing myself so I dusted myself off and got on with the descent into Stenay.
I spent the morning fighting strong winds as I wound my way towards the Belgian border. The rain was settling in for the day and the wetness and wind chill meant it felt a lot colder than the thermometer on my bicycle computer was displaying. This was the case all the way across France. Although it was unseasonably mild the wind chill and high humidity was counter acting this and meant that it felt close to freezing most days.
With my last 40 kilometres in France over with I arrived at the Belgian border. I find that there’s always a certain boost that crossing over into a new country gives you. The fact I was crossing into two countries today and I was leaving France behind gave me a much needed extra boost. Don’t get me wrong, France is a fantastic country. I’ve visited it plenty of times before and always had a good time but on this occasion I had a fairly rough time of it. The constant rain (every day except one!) and the freezing winds made it tough going. And unfortunately the whole of Northern France in the Winter is very empty with everything closed or shut for the Winter so it did nothing to take my mind off it. Maybe I’m just complaining too much and focusing on the negatives but in my state of mind crossing the country that’s what I took away from it and I’d be lying if I said any differently.
My route through Belgium was only a very short one, 25km at most so I didn’t get to see too much of the country. Therefore there are only a handful of photos from there.
As I neared the Luxembourg border a storm system that was currently causing very high winds in Northwestern Europe was also starting to reach the Benelux region. It brought with it high winds (although nothing too bad) and torrential rain. The thought of bagging a new country was spurring me on though so I didn’t care too much about that. Luxembourg was to be my only new country on the trip until I reached Bulgaria towards the end of February. Every other country in between I have already visited at one time or another.
The last main road out of Belgium was a struggle. It was quite narrow yet trucks and cars would still pass me when others were oncoming leaving me with no wriggle room. I had to keep fully concentrated on keeping the bike perfectly straight. On one occasion a truck passed too close to me with oncoming traffic and I bailed to the right. Just as it passed me my front wheel slipped on the kerb and the bike went down hard into the pavement. Luckily with all of my mountain bike experience (mostly in crashing!), I was able to leap over the bars and land on my feet into a run. Luckily nothing on the bike was damaged as it was a slow enough crash. It was frustrating more than anything and dented the confidence. Was Europe and further afield just going to be full of trucks flying by me with centimetres to spare. I got back on the bike and pedaled furiously onwards to the Luxembourg border.
With the rain really teeming down now I arrived at the Luxembourg border where I took a quick break before heading in the direction of Luxembourg City. My route into the city passed through satellite towns for nearly the entirety of the 25 kilometres. The traffic was manic and the downpour was making it tough going. I just put the head down and got on with it.
After over an hour of fighting with traffic I arrived into the quiet pedestrianised area of Luxembourg City. I made my way to the hostel and wasted no time in booking a room. The weather forecast was predicting a night full of rain and rain for most of the day tomorrow. Also I was feeling burnt out after cycling non stop for over a week, the fitness was coming back slowly but it wasn’t quite there yet. Due to these factors I decided a rest day tomorrow would be a good idea and booked two nights at the hostel.
Day 12: Luxembourg City – Rest day
My rest day was mostly spent either asleep or wandering around the quiet streets of Luxembourg seeing the sights. I had always wanted to visit Luxembourg after seeing some great photos of the city and the valley it resides in. It really was quite an impressive city. Huge churches and fortresses were scattered across the base of the valley and along it’s walls all the way to the top of the valley where the city then spread out. I had picked a bad time of year to visit, the photos here of the overcast skies won’t do it justice but it really is a very scenic location.
Other than wandering around the streets and having my first proper meal in a few days I didn’t get up to too much so here’s a selection of shots from around the city.
Irregular Adventures 