TdE - Day 45 Tienen - Hoogstraaten

Route: Tienen - Aarschot - Herentals - Hoogstraaten 
Distance: 83 km
Elevation: 279 m
Duration: 4:29 h
Weather: initially cloudy, then rainy, colder than in the past days, but sandals were still okay while riding, 16 C

Now back on the way to home in the Netherlands. When I first set out for this trip through Europe, I hadn't really planned the Belgian part. I knew that with EuroVelo 5  I would be able to come until Brussels (where I actually didn't go at all) and was confident that from there I should be able to find a good route back to the Netherlands. Finally due to the World Championships and thanks to the amazing weather during this entire trip, today would become only the second day to really get wet, I did arrive earlier in Belgium and stayed longer. But now it is time to head back home, to my new job starting on Friday this week. 

When I planned this return, I saw the option to use the Stedenroute, which is a tour connecting Brussels to Amsterdam passing through Antwerp, Dordrecht, Rotterdam and Alphen aan den Rijn, but from Tienen it would have been too far to cover in 2 days, and I wanted to be back in Leiden by Tuesday evening to have 2 days prior to my new job. So instead I opted for a pretty straight line from Tienen to Leiden, which happened to pass through Herentals, Breda and Dordrecht. Today on the first day, I would still stay in Belgium and stop shortly before the border in a small town called Hoogstraaten, in a surprisingly good, modern hotel. So modern that the hotel staff needs to explain how to switch on the lights in the room. 

Unfortunately during the second part of the ride, from Herentals onwards, it did rain. So once I arrive to my posh hotel I was pretty much covered in mud... but luckily Flemish people are all cycling fans and probably also cyclo cross fans, so they were not phased out by my appearance at check in. And in the room I tried to keep my mud to one sector of the room only. 

The first part of the ride to Aarschot was on quite nice country lanes ... 

... then came a section on one of those Belgian train tracks ...

... but there were also other cycling paths, like this one, specially paved with cobbles only in the cycling lane!!!

... which wasn't the worst part though... but even the parts later on between Herentals and Hoogstraaten on a main road were done reasonably well. Not totally save, but the felt safer than some other microscopic, bumpy cycling paths I had used in Belgium elsewhere. 

Belgium will remain in my mind as this strange cycling crazy nation, that doesn't know how to build cycling paths. Mystery!