East Vlaanderen - pt 4

In Leuven. It's a hot day and I have nothing to do. Right now I'm sitting on a sort of grandstand by the Entrepot, an in-town dock where there's an old market or depot turned into a tony café. Ariane, my Vrienden op de Fiets host, says this part of town is being converted into a café zone.

In October, Ariane says, the population of Leuven doubles with the influx of university students. Now it is rather sleepy. My tentative plan is to look around town, then take a ride out to where my next Vrienden op de Fiets hosts are, a place called Korbeek-Dijle, southwest of town. Tomorrow I'll stay in yet another place, east of Leuven. This is fine; on a trip like this, it's good to keep moving.

Ariane's apartment is quite near the center of Leuven, a functional flat with large windows overlooking a playground occupied by swarthy locals. She's lived there for the past three years.

Leuven

(original date of this entry: Aug 22, 2018)
Leuven is an attractive bourgeois town, and unlike Ghent there are few tourists. After the Entrepot, I had a look at the Kleine Begijnhof (old residential complex for unmarried women), then found a bike repair store where I had my creaky pedals replaced. Next found one of those French-style terrace cafes and had a Stella Artois, which is brewed here. I could have sat there all day but instead took a look around the center. Like Mechelen it has a madly baroque structure, though I have no guidebook to tell me what it is. The Oud Markt is a sea of cafés, probably getting busy about now. But I have to leave town since my hosts are a ways out of town. 

Geuze Boon is a sour lambiek beer of Brussels. It can only be made in that area since it is fermented from the bacteria of that region. 

This I learned from Maarten. He and Tine are Vrienden op de Fiets in Kordeel-Dijle. 

Arenbergpark

The ride down to their place was very nice. To get to kp 74 you need to go down through a graffitied tunnel. On the other side you're directed through the beautiful Arenbergpark, which skirts the Dijle river, then toward kp 13 open fields and a patch of dense forest. Finally, toward kp 2 you make a substantial climb to go over the A3, the one that now drones in the distance, and fly back down to the first left, Ormandweg. About 250m on is Tine & Maarten's place. It's quite simple but there's no place to eat out here; I wisely had dinner in Leuven, at The Optimist, Ariane's recommendation. 

To the bike tunnel

It is quiet out here but the highway makes a continuous drone. Tine and Maarten are unusual for Vrienden op de Fiets, rather young, and they have two kids and a border collie. It's gezellig but they don't seem to feel like conversing. 

Tine is a small, perky woman with luminescent eyes that she's passed on to her daughter. Maarten is an easygoing, somewhat shy, long-haired dude. While he was getting the kids off to "creative camp," he put my breakfast on the table: granola, yogurt, fresh grapefruit juice, good coffee, a jar of homemade jam, bread. They live in an old farmhouse that belongs to Tine's family, upgraded to modern design standards. The bathroom has a rainshower that resembles a Star Trek beam-up station; I couldn't get the water to reduce from scalding hot. Anyway I'm glad I stayed there because it gave me a chance to see another, rural side of Leuven. 

(Aug 23, 2018)
Cool, overcast morning, and I've been wandering the area southwest of Leuven. Kind of misty and forlorn. 

The next few days should be cooler and rainy--just in time for my two-day jaunt eastward to Maastricht. Today I just want to cycle through the forests--Meerdaalbos, Molendalbos and Heverleebos--then return to Leuven for a beer and supper, then head east to my Vrienden op de Fiets in Kessel-Lo.

Leuven - Oud-Heverlee - Leuven

The ride from Ormendalweg to the village of Oud-Heverlee was great, a dirt trail that follows the Dijle river. (It appears to be on both the LF-5 and LF-2.) The town of Oud-Heverlee seems dull and suburban, and I escaped into the forest (-> kp 79), an old still patch with tall trees. I then attempted to follow part of the suggested route from Lannoo's Fietsen in de grensstreek van Vlaanderen, but did not venture far beyond Sint-Joris Weert, with a little train station. I tried to find the "natuurgebied" by a lake to the south without success. Sint-Joris is downhill from the forest and you can actually get some views of the countryside, not unlike Limburg. The book was published pre-knooppunten, and the knooppunten in my Vlaanderen fiets atlas seem totally out of date. There seem to be a number of new knooppunten. The best source is fietsnet.be but you've got to be online to use it. Everyone uses GPS these days except me. I still like old paper maps with an occasional glance at citymaps2go, which sometimes works offline in unlikely places like Oud-Heverlee.

A brilliant dash through the woods on a slender packed-dirt trail ends up at kp 78 with directions to kp 77 (east toward Mollendalbos) and 82 (north toward Heverleebos), though neither appears on my any map--not even the posted ones. I decide to go north (back toward Leuven) on the Nethense Baan.

Heverleebos

» kp 82 » 76
To kp 82 is a lovely broad rolling path through the forest, which then heads east to reach old fields. Then it's a left to kp 76 and down an old gravel lane across from a farmstead. The whole ride is a joy. This route appears to be along the LF-6b. At kp 76 you can go to 1 (back west where I came from) or 70 (unknown), which corresponds to the LF-6. This way is along the Herendreef, which on citymaps2go goes a long way north through Heverlee forest. If I'm going in the right direction, I should go under the thruway. Let's see now … 

My hunch was borne out as the drone from the A3/E40 increased in volume and soon I tunneled under it--the tunnel a metal tube with floor lighting. Much easier than going over it toward kp 1, which involved a serious climb. Then I continue north on Herendreef toward kp 75 and continue through the Heverleebos. Excellent woodsy day trip. 

Free parking, Leuven

Going back to Leuven, I made a wrong turn: to the LF-6 rather than the LF-2. This took me alongside the highway, then underneath it and soon I was riding in the countryside again. Back to town, back through the long underpass, so dark I could not see in front of me toward the middle. Then toward kp 10, through the graffiti tunnel, and I was back in the center of Leuven. I like the vibe of the town, relaxed, a bit cosmopolitan, cyclists everywhere. I browsed a comic book shop, then had a few beers at the Café Metafoor on Parijsstraat, just below the Oud Markt, and just watched the fabulous pageant of cyclists who weave by the pedestrians. Now it's time to find my crib. Continued...