In Flanders Fields

This region, Flanders (Flandres), a region which includes western Belgium and northwestern France, was the Western Front of World War I. One of the most well known towns in which fighting revolved was Ypres (Ieper), also known as the Salient. This region saw fighting from October 1914 until  November 1918. Ypres was for all intents and purposes destroyed by the war, but was rebuilt to much the same design after the war. Up to half a million men (young men) died in battle here to gain less than two miles of ground. Such a waste. Despite this, the region is hauntingly beautiful now, and only makes me more aware of how tenuous our hold on peace is.

New Zealand fought in World War I, and was one of the first countries to arrive as allies of the British. At the time, with only one million people, our 16,697 dead and 41,317 wounded was a large portion of our population. The Tyne Cot Cemetery in Belgium contains the graves of more New Zealanders than any other cemetery outside of New Zealand.

In Flanders Fields, by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

To end on an uplifting note, I really enjoyed the use of physical models for blind people to be able to experience the architecture of Ypres. The 13th Century Cloth Hall (rebuilt after World War I) is much visited, and a small model with braille information was provided for those with impaired sight to create a mental map of the building. There are so many things like this that we can do to make experiences more meaningful for people with different abilities and impairments.

Bruges in all its glory

I biked into Bruges via a lovely series of canals past a small village called Damme. It was a bit misty and rainy, but no less beautiful.

As my map so kindly told me: "Yeah, yeah, we know. Bruges is like a romantic movie: full of lovely canals, swans, medieval houses and pretty churches. But wake up: it's a place where people live and we don't drive in horse carriages. Time to start acting like a local!"

Despite this, here are some lovely pictures of canals, medieval houses, and pretty churches. Darn. I failed that directive.

However, as I was cycling through this area, I explored a lot of the back streets and lesser known areas of Bruges, if only because I couldn't figure my way into the city--those aforementioned canals can be a problem when you're trying to cross them, and don't as yet know the gate system!

The city began as a trade powerhouse. in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. Unfortunately, Mother Nature decided to silt up the harbour, and cut it off from the sea. This meant that Bruges (at the time larger than London), basically went to sleep. In the last 100 years it has started to see a bit of growth, as land travel is opened up. Oh, and in 2009 there was apparently a movie (which I missed) called "In Bruges" that has the quote "If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me. But I didn't, so it doesn't." Since this, more tourists (presumably hipsters) have flooded the town.

All in all, actually one of the best places I have visited in Europe so far. I loved the hostel I was staying in, and managed to mix well with a variety of people, all friendly and interesting. The town is beautiful, walkable, and really does have fantastic chocolate. The chocolate shops are these beautiful artistic stores where one feels terribly bad to eat such beautiful masterpieces, until one does. I especially enjoyed looking at what they decided to make out of the chocolate. Asparagus, anyone?

I bought water colours in Bruges, that I should have had for my entire journey . . . but had decided I needed to minimize the things I was carrying. Bad decision. The art is necessary.

Beautiful city, wonderful time.

Neither here nor there.

Navigating through a landscape where you speak the language is tough enough. Navigating when signs are a mystery and people incomprehensible is a little more interesting. Luckily, having started in the Netherlands, bike signs were abundant and very easily decipherable. And in a tough spot, many people know English, and gesturing, English, mediocre French, and sporadic German seemed to convey enough to result in help to varying degrees of success.

In some places the bike lanes were well marked on the ground, especially so as to distinguish it from foot traffic and minimise opportunities for collisions.

Much of the Netherlands is a web of two kinds of bicycle lanes. One, major bike lanes, are actual marked routes (line data), the others, are a web of marked and numbered intersections (point data) with connecting possible routes. The first is much easier to navigate, and frequented by more people (allowing for a greater number of campsites and eating opportunities), the second is more likely to give a view of the "real" Netherlands, campsites are generally cheaper, and gives you more flexibility to vary your route as wind directions and sightseeing opportunities arise. I did a combination of the two, but found that the second was much more suited to my style of bike riding. However, on days when I wanted to cover more distance, it was nice to take the smoother, less interrupted major routes.

I used a combination of high and low-tech navigation tools. These consisted of my ipod touch with preloaded maps of Europe (and when internet was available, google maps), to physical maps, a small compass (so useful!) and on sunny days, the shadow put forth by my bicycle. I spent several days doing large chunks of distance solely based on direction (vaguely south west), as due to the flexibility of my schedule, it didn't really matter where I ended up from day to day, as long as at some point I put some kilometers behind me and ended up in Paris (which I did).

On days when I did plan, I would generally look for 2-3 campgrounds, One 40km away, another 50-60km, and the third 60-80km. Then, as the day progressed, I could see how long I wanted to be cycling, and where I would want to spend the night. It also gave me the flexibility to see a location and decide I didn't want to stay there, and move on to the next place.

Sticky situations arose when signs were less easy to see, or were nonexistent, but, really, the Netherlands was a dream. Navigation throughout Belgium was also pretty great, although signs were less well maintained, and major routes were less common, to France where I've had trouble finding information about bike routes, and have done much more road biking (please prove me wrong and point me in the right direction), not entirely less pleasant, as I see more of the towns than I did throughout the Netherlands, but definitely more vehicle traffic intensive.

Another problem I came across was seasonal options for crossing bodies of water. I added a full day's biking as one of the ferries noted on my map turned out to be only operational June through September. This meant a quick shuffle to find a new campsite, and a day's biking further along the coast to catch a bus through a tunnel underneath the channel. However, when there were ferries, they were so easy and cheap to use. Lovely.

I'm sure there will be more challenges, but the problem solving and adaptation of plans is part of the fun. Plus, it's like one gigantic orienteering adventure, and as a geography geek, that can only be a good thing. I won't get into the possible theses I see branching out before me (undergrads, apply here for ideas) . . . but suffice to say, the mind boggles at how interesting it is to use my brain to get from A to B (to Z) through different environments and multiple countries using different modes of transport and different navigation aides.