Tour de Grand Est - Fin. Arrived in Brussels.

We finished our Tour de Grand Est 2026 today. 

Hello lamppost, what you knowing?

I've come to watch your flowers growin' 

We awoke to another random act of kindness. Yesterday, as I was charging the battery and the lights and the phones, I walked back and forth to the charging station many times. Each time I struck up a conversation with a woman who had cycled in, alone, and pitched her tent, alone. She was from Holland and cycling the Flanders Route (950 km), alone. I find that amazing, on so many levels - doing it all yourself, navigation, mechanics, food and lodging. Wow. 

This morning, just before 7, when I got out of the tent, I found this little note. 

I had left one of our converter plugs in the socket. Wow, that was so very nice of her, it would have been left behind for sure. And, how did she get packed up and off so early?☀️ 

In the end, only kindness matters. 

We did a little suburb riding, there are so many cyclists and so many great routes the signs are informative and plentiful. Love this one with distance, elevation and grade, everything you want to know!

I had to stop for this town sign. It is a village here, but honestly, it really describes what comes out of my mouth when I see a big spider 😉

Heading into a big city always has it pros and cons. First the cons. No more farmer's fields, no more cows, just concrete and traffic and city noise, and other signs...

The bike path actually took us alongside a highway for a distance (with a guard rail between us and the traffic).

Including a cobblestoned underpass for bikes.  Yes, a slope down on cobblestones, leading to a dark passageway, leading to a rather steep climb, up to the highway again. 😳

But as we entered the greater Brussels area, everything changed. 

Every intersection has a red path for bikes, and the cars are incredibly aware of cyclists. They stop for you everytime.  In many places the cyclist has the right-of-way. 

 

And the city streets have tree lined boulevards complete with a shaded bike path in the middle. 

We stopped for our snack break at a park.

We found a shaded bench and watched a class of teenagers doing an orienteering course.  Yikes. WAY too hot for that.  

Our next stop was, of course, Decathalon.

They have promised us two bike boxes for pick up Saturday. Just what we wanted to accomplish. That means we now have these two boxes, and two from another bike shop also promised, so we are covering ourselves in terms of final execution and finding the best sizes. Fingers crossed they are there on Saturday when we have a car rented. 🤞

We made our way back to Zaventem, the suburb closest to the airport in Brussels (we were here last year). There are lovely flowers here, everywhere. In the roundabouts, on the lamp posts and in the gardens. 

Our bikes have been unloaded and carried up to the apartment (why do we always gets the European  second floor = third floor at home).  

Done! 

Groceries have been purchased. 

Beer is in the frig. 

Pizza has been consumed. 

And the numbers have been calculated. 

Stage 1 - Paris to the Vosges

241.82km / 2,209m

Stage 2 - Vosges to Strasbourg (Rhine Valley)

198.84km / 434m

Stage 3 - Strasbourg to Luxembourg 

255.66km / 2,157m

Stage 4 - Luxembourg 

89.91km / 941m

Stage 5 - Back in France 

280.98km / 1,708m

Stage 6 - Belgium 

155.91km / 925m

Totals

1,223.12 kilometers cycled. 

8,374 meters climbed. 

Thank you to all who have been following along. Thank you for every comment, every comment makes me happy. And thank you also to those of you following along quietly. 💕

One final post to come - once we are home, I will post final thoughts, themes and reflections. 

🌸

Tour de Grand Est - Stage 6 - closing in on Brussels

Good morning sunshine!

We said goodbye to Bash and to the campsite on the hill and we set off for a hilly day. 

Leaving Namur, we went through some industrial places, this canal boat being loaded was cool to watch. Note the car and the boat on the front (there were 2 bikes on the back). 

We had the last of the lovely farmer's fields today. With wheat and other grains blowing. 

There are still so many crops we don't know how to identify, I think we need a crop app, like the Merlin bird app! 

 

What the heck is under all this black plastic? 

 

And what is this with lovely lavendar coloured flowers on top. 

There was some serious crop investigation going on, but we don't travel with a shovel. 😉

It was a warm breezy day and the wind mills were working hard. 

 

There are also lovely, random stands of trees around. 

We stopped for our snack in this one (photo above from far away, photo below close up).  It was so noisy with birds, and cool with shade, what a lovely thing. 

The daily mid morning call to the campground we hope to stay at tonight.  All part of our daily touring schedule. 

Here is another random stand of trees. They give remarkably good shade and are a welcome change on a hot sunny day. 

We travelled through a few small towns. Not as many big churches where we are now, this very cute little one, no longer in use. 

Some lovely buildings here in Belgium, and also lovely gardens. 

This town also had an old railway station that is now a restaurant, or so it appears. 

We were back in some thick woods, and after a very busy intersection...

We found ourselves on a long cobblestone road, going up hill, in a forest. Very surreal. Very tiring. 

After our arms had recovered from the cobblestoned forest road, we found ourselves on another cobblestone climb BUT

This one had a paved bike path on each side. So when a car passes you it has all four tires on cobblestone, but if two cars had to pass each other, each had two tires on pavement and two on cobblestone.  Interesting. And much more comfortable than the road, for cycling. 

Yesterday we had a stretch of cobblestone on the bike path and the sign read "300 meters of good vibrations ahead" 🤣

A stop along the cobblestoned road to say hello to the cows. 

In the next little town, the guys were busy painting the bike lane yellow. You have to love Belgium, on a bike, just follow the yellow painted road!  

Look at this field! I think it was just wild flowers rather than a crop. Such gorgeous colours.  

We crossed over from the French region of Belgium in the Flemish region. 

 

Our campsite tonight is less than 25km from Brussels. We will have a short ride in tomorrow, thankfully, as they are predicting 33 degrees. 

We celebrated our hot and hilly ride today with some cold beer and great snacks. 

There are many cyclists here, and they have a special shaded grassy area for us all to pitch. This is the view from my tent door.  Quiet and friendly here, with lots of conversations about where you are going to and coming from. Bike touring is a nice way to meet like-minded people. And even when we don't all speak the same language, we get by, comparing tents and maps and gear, and then heading to bed early because we all climbed the same giant hill to get here. 🚲

This will be our 19th night in our tent on this trip.  It has been wonderful to us. Comfortable and weatherproof, easy to put up and take down, and very light to carry (especially for me, because Marc carries it 😉). 

Wishing you a peaceful night.