Month: August 2022

As you will have realised, this trip is of the two-wheeled variety, and not one that we did aboard Lady M.

It is a trip we had arranged to do with a couple of cycling buddies from the UK with whom we have enjoyed some lovely bike rides over the years in places as far afield as Piemonte in Italy, Andalusia in Spain, and the Mekhong delta in Vietnam.

With Lady M safely moored in Diksmuide, we took the train to Brussels and flew to Trieste on 14 July – it was a long day! Meeting up with our friends on Friday 15 July, we spent a warm and sunny Friday and Saturday exploring this wonderful city, before heading south on Sunday morning for five cycling days, with a day off in between to rest and explore Porec. The climbs were manageable and the distances were not daunting, however the July temperatures were a bit of a challenge, with forecasts of 32C to 34C along the coast, and actual temperatures of 35C or more in the higher inland sections.

So first of all, a little bit about Trieste, an ancient city on the northern Adriatic coast which is almost surrounded by Slovenia, that none of us had visited before. Trieste became part of the Roman republic in 177 BC, but the site had been inhabited for more than 900 years before the Romans arrived. Since the Romans the city has been occupied and ruled at various times by the French, Austrians and Italians, and ultimately after WWII the narrow coastal strip of land and the city of Trieste itself became part of Italy.

First and foremost, Trieste is a popular Adriatic sea port – it still has a small fishing fleet – and is home to some large marinas, ship-building facilities and a large rail-port interface and logistics infrastructure. It’s tourist office describes Trieste as “attractive, sophisticated and cultured, and one of Italy’s most cosmopolitan cities“.

While you are on top of the hill, a visit to the Winckelmann Museum, whose entrance is adjacent to the Cathedral, is highly recommended. This museum has a vast collection of Roman and Egyptian archeology both inside the museum building and within the large walled gardens which extend back down the hill. The museum is named after Johann Joachim Winckelmann, considered in Italy to be a founding father of Archaeology and Art History, who was murdered during a robbery whilst waiting in Trieste to catch a ship to complete his trip from Vienna to Rome.

Amongst all the wonderful ancient artifacts we saw in the museum (and there are a lot !), we thought that the complete collection of Roman coins dating from Emperor Augustus (27BC to 14AD) to Emperor Theodosius (379 to 395AD) was quite something!

As with most of our rides, Day 1 was a settling down, bike adjusting, generally hard working event, and this one was no different. We don’t even have a photo to show for the 65km journey around the Muggia bay and on to the seaside resort town of Portoroz in Slovenia, but we do have some taken at the lovely hotel at the end of the day which had, amongst other things, comfortable rooms, ice-cold beers and a swimming pool.

Day 2 took us to the Croatian town of Novigrad, about 60km for the day, and we started a bit earlier to try and minimise our exposure to the afternoon heat. We initially skirted a large estuary with huge marina, solar salt farms and a nature reserve before crossing the border into Croatia.

A very rude and miserable immigration officer shouted for us to come through the control post on our bikes – but only after he had watched us dismount and carefully park them and approach his booth!

Initially we were riding across country following gravel paths above the coast, but we soon dropped onto the busy coastline, passing lots of caravan parks, beach-side resorts, holiday homes and the hundreds of holidaymakers who migrate to the beach for their summer holidays and worship the sun.

Day 3 was a short ride of only 20km from Novigrad to Porec, with a few small climbs, but nevertheless rather hot. We stopped for a coffee break in the sleepy, rather grimy and aptly-named town of Tar. The Croatian currency is the Kuna (A$1 = kn5 approx), and our coffee’s were kn6 each, though we noted the locals were all drinking beer at 10am. When the bill arrived we discovered it was cheaper to drink beer at kn8 for a 330ml glass than bottled water at kn18 for 500ml.

We managed to get an early check-in to our hotel at 12 noon, had another memorable lunch and spent the remainder of the day wandering the small city of Porec, and with the promise of a rest day tomorrow (not that we really needed one).

Porec is another ancient city with about 2,000 years of history, the oldest part of which sits on a small peninsula jutting into the sea and has a small harbour protected by the island of Sveti Nikola (Saint Nicholas) just a few hundred metres offshore.

Porec is home to the 6th-century Euphrasian Basilica which we found well worth our visit. The first cathedral existed here in the 4th-century, but is was enlarged in the 5th century and then substantially rebuilt on the same site by Bishop Euphrasius in the 6th century. Archaeologists continue to excavate and find the 4th and 5th-century architecture and artifacts which were buried in the reconstruction.

Day 4 was a moderately challenging 51km ride from Porec to Rovinj, which comprised gradually climbing inland for about 28km to skirt the Limski Canal, followed by a 6km downhill into the gorge, then immediately followed by a 150m climb out of the gorge over about 2.5km (i.e. about 6% average), and then generally downhill for about 15km to Rovinj. We were all pleased to complete the day despite the 35C temperature – rewarded with a cool shower, cold beer and a fresh tuna steak dinner in a local alleyway restaurant in the old part of the city.

Like Porec, the city of Rovinj is built on a peninsula (however it was once an island, before the land was filled to connect it to the mainland), however this peninsula has some decent contours to it, with the Saint Euphemia Church and its tower dominating the hilltop.

Our final cycling day was a 42km ride down to Pula, a large and ancient city near the southern tip of Croatia’s Istrian Peninsula, with a very large natural protected harbour. Pula has been occupied since the prehistoric era, probably because of its strategic location. The Romans, Ostrogoths and Venetians, as well as the Allied Forces in WWII, have each administered the city at various times.

The old city is built around a small hill, the city’s highest point and the site of a Venetian fortress which was built in the 1630’s. Previously on this strategic location stood a Histri hill-fort, a Roman castrum and subsequently a medieval castle.

On the walk back down the hill we poked our heads into the Saint Francis church and monastery which dates from 1,285 – such a very peaceful and relaxing environment, yet only a stone’s throw from the fortress and it’s cannons just above.

We said our farewells to Chris and Jo and took a coach back to Trieste where we spent another couple of days before our flight back to Brussels on 27 July, and onward by train to Diksmuide and Lady M.

We are very fortunate to have had ‘a holiday within a holiday’, briefly visiting Trieste, Slovenia and Croatia, all of them for the first time. Cycling holidays like this are a great way to experience the sights, sounds and flavours of a country, meet the people, taste the local food (and beer and wine of course), and get a bit of exercise and physical challenge to boot.

Overall we covered 232km over the five cycling days, an average of just over 46km per day and certainly not a big distance but nevertheless quite respectable. Chris and Jo clocked up even more by going on an optional 35km ride on our “rest day”. Suffice to say a good time was had by all, and we always look forward to the next one, wherever that may be.

In our next installment we will retrace the journey on Lady M from Diksmuide to Brugge and Ghent, then head south and generally follow the French border along the south of Belgium, heading east on the home straight of our anti-clockwise navigation of Belgium – but more of that next time.

It is only a 57km journey from Brugge to Diksmuide, initially by continuing west on the Kanaal Gent-Oostende, then turning south west into the Kanaal Plassendaele-Nieuwpoort, and finally south on the Ijzer River towards Diksmuide and Ieper (Ypres in French).

We are visiting this area because of its significance as a front line battlefield during World War I. Many readers will recognise the names of the towns and places of what was once the Western Front within Belgium. It is now named ‘Flanders Fields‘, in honour of the very moving poem ‘In Flanders Fields‘ written by a Canadian army doctor John McCrae after the death in action of his closest friend near Ieper.

Towns like Ieper (Ypres), Nieuwpoort, Zonnebeke, Passendale and Poperinge, and the countryside around them, were completely destroyed during the battles which were fought here from 1914 to 1918. It is estimated that more than 1 million soldiers from 50 different countries were missing, wounded or killed in this small corner of Belgium during WWI.

Flanders Fields is now a permanent place of remembrance of those who gave their lives for the freedoms that we enjoy today. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) maintains 23,000 cemeteries and memorial sites in more than 150 countries, including dozens here in Flanders Fields, to honour the 1.7 million men and women of the Commonwealth forces who lost their lives in the two World Wars.

But first of all, a bit about our trip from Brugge to Diksmuide, starting with the rather radical design for the Scheepsdalebrug lifting bridge on the outskirts of Brugge, the likes of which we have not seen before.

We decided to overnight on a free mooring near the town of Oudenburg so that we could bus into Oostende to replace our data SIM card. It was a wet and miserable afternoon, but we were successful and continued on to Nieuwpoort the next day.

Next stop the North Sea port of Nieuwpoort, where famously the Belgian authorities, aware of the rapidly approaching German army, opened the sea locks at the Ganzepoot (Goose Foot) lock complex in October 1914 and flooded the Ijzer valley south to Diksmuide and beyond. This halted the German advance in its tracks, and set the front line which effectively remained until the war ended four years later.

We skirted inland to avoid the tidal port, and moored at the very pleasant Westhoek Yacht Harbour, which has 220 moorings and an on-site bar and restaurant, and well located only a 1km walk into Nieuwpoort.

Nieuwpoort is one of a number of towns along this coast which are connected by the Coastal Tram with 68 stops over a distance of more than 50km, from De Panne in the south to Knokke in the north – a scenic and very cost-effective way to see this part of the Belgian coast – it’s only Euro 7.50 for a day pass.

The Domein Raversijde tram stop not far from Nieuwpoort provides access to the Atlantikwall Raversyde open air military museum, where visitors can see a small part of the German coastal defences from WWI and WWII. The Atlantikwall extended over 5,000km from the Spanish-French border all the way to the Finnish-Russian border. Along the French, Belgian and Dutch coasts alone there were more than 15,000 gun and observation bunkers.

During our stay at Westhoek Harbour we witnessed a succession of unmanned self-guided / remote controlled “water barges” travelling between Diksmuide and Oostende, which requires them to navigate through the St. Joris lock adjacent to the Westhoek harbour.

We motored up to Diksmuide on on 8 July, having already arranged a 3-week long mooring there, to enable us to fly to Trieste in Italy on 14 July to do a self-guided bike ride from Trieste to Pula in Croatia (but we’ll save that story for another post). The Diksmuide Yacht Harbour is run by a friendly bunch of volunteers – it’s always good to know that Lady M is in good hands while we were away.

Diksmuide was completely destroyed in WWI, and has since been rebuilt, with the buildings around the market square being replicas of the medieval buildings which once stood there. It is also home to the Yser Tower which is the central monument of the Museum on the Yser, a war memorial in the form of a 23 storey (84m high) tower with about 20 floors of displays covering multiple aspects of the two world wars. The tower commemorates the Flemish soldiers who lost their lives in WWI, and is a highly visible landmark in an otherwise very flat landscape.

On Sunday 10 July we did a bike ride in search of some local “hills” (which we found, and actually enjoyed riding), and also discovered the Vredesmolen (the Peace Mill), an abandoned windmill which stands 43m above sea level, and was a strategic lookout post for the Germans during WWI.

Of course, many towns in Belgium have their own little brewery (we try hard not to miss them), and Diksmuide is no exception, being home to the Papegaei Brewery (Papegaei is the Dutch word for parrot). It is only open on a Sunday afternoon, but the beer is an excellent blonde, so make sure that you plan your visit accordingly!

We were able to hire a car in Diksmuide for a couple of days, which allowed us to visit a few of the main war memorial sites and other attractions in the area, many of which are located in the surrounding countryside.

Our first stop was Tyne Cot Cemetery, the final resting place of almost 12,000 servicemen, of whom more than 8,300 remain unidentified. Around the cemetery stands the curved Tyne Cot Memorial bearing the names of 35,000 UK and NZ servicemen who have no known grave. Of the 205,000 British Empire servicemen commemorated in Belgium by the CWGC, almost half have no known grave (their bodies were never found, or could not be identified). Many lie beneath a headstone bearing the inscription “Known unto God“.

Bedford House Cemetery on the outskirts of Ieper is the final resting place of more than 5,200 soldiers almost entirely from WWI.

There are many cemeteries that can be visited in this area, though by the time we had wandered through the vast cemeteries of Tyne Cot and Bedford House we were left feeling very humble, very grateful, and extremely sad. What a terrible and tragic waste of life, most were only in their 20’s, and some were as young 16 and 17 years old.

Ieper is another example of a city which has been almost completely rebuilt since WWI, although there remain a fair number of historical buildings which give a grand impression as you stroll into the Grote Markt. Ieper is also home the the Menin Gate which took 4 years to build and is inscribed with the names of 54,896 missing soldiers of the Commonwealth forces who have no known final resting place.

Starting in 1928 there is a service every evening at 8pm under the Menin Gate, when the Last Post is played by buglers in a very moving ceremony during which visiting representatives sometimes lay commemorative wreaths of poppies. We were fortunate to be able to attend this very moving ceremony on the evening of 12 July, together with about 800 others who were there to pay their respects. Long may this continue – Lest We Forget.

Ieper was once very famous for its cloth and linen production, and is also home to the “In Flanders Fields Museum” – an extensive and interactive history of WWI housed in what was once the city’s grand medieval Cloth Hall building on the Grote Markt, and well worth a visit.

The nearby town of Poperinge is also famous as the regional centre for the growing of high quality hops used in the flavouring and bittering of beer, and is home to the National Hop Museum which is perfectly housed in an original restored hop oasting house.

As you would expect, we couldn’t come all this way without visiting one of Belgium’s most famous Trappist breweries, the Brouwerij de Sint-Sixtusabdij van Westvleteren. Unfortunately, it is not possible for mere beer-loving mortals like us to visit the brewery itself because it is a working monastery as well as brewery, but there is a pub-restaurant only a few hundred metres away where the award winning beer can be enjoyed with a meal.

Poperinge was unoccupied territory during WWI, and is home to Talbot House which was established in 1915 in a historic building (built in 1790) by British army chaplains Neville Talbot and Philip Clayton, to provide a place of rest and recreation for soldiers on their way to or from the front, regardless of rank.