349 to Bruxelles 4.7.2019

At the Hotel Cortina I had a good breakfast with many sorts of cheese (I tasted 4 of them), did some video editing but not finishing it, because I was too nervous although even leaving at 10:00 would have been enough to do 100km and arrive around 18:30, the time Moni, a class mate from 1975-1983 now living in Bruxelles, had arranged with me for meeting and hosting.
The tour lead again through nice villages and towns and some rural areas, with enough sun to leave me sunburnt (I thought I can deal with that sunlight, but it was too strong). No technical problems, no big detours, only some 750 height meters on 99km. The wind was maybe less but for sure at no time coming from the back. “Back” is the keyword for my biggest problem of the day, not exactly the back but still not the legs, somewhere in the middle, I felt a bit uncomfortable, so I profited by the hilly surroundings, because when it was going uphill, I pedaled standing and when it was going down, I also left the saddle.
In one street of a little town, maybe it was Oudenaare, but I didn’t find a sign there was a street market and I had to push my bike.

But at one booth they sold pralines and the looked delicious. Yesterday, at the hotel I had got 4€ back when I paid, but it was in 20cent coins. So, I thought it would be a good idea to change all those coins with pralines, but it was not. It is not easy to get me to that point of saying a chocolate is bad, but this one was. Later, when I already had reached Bruxelles, I went to an ALDI and bought my first Belgian chocolate, and this was much better.

I arrived at Moni’s house one hour too early, but a neighbour saw me waiting and invited me to his house where we had a lively conversation in German.
Moni and Andreas came home, showed me a nice room and invited me for a great dinner. We talked for a while and I showed some things from my trip but time flew and we had to stop.