West Flanders tour

Try out of the bicycles in a nice short bike ride of 25 km. The route goes along the oldest canal of Belgium that connects Bruges and Ghent with the North Sea. The day ends in the beautiful town Oudenburg with its old market square.

We start the day with a bike ride along the canal from Plassendale to Nieuwpoort. In Nieuwpoort the river Yser Flows into the North Sea. From Nieuwpoort we follow an old railroad to Diksmuide(Dixmude), that is converted into a bike path. Sometimes we leave this path to follow the strongly meandering river Yser, that is still well known from the Great War.In Diksmuide we will visit the ‘Trenches of Death’ and the Yser-tower which remind us of the resistance of the Belgian army against the German army.

We will bike along the Yserand its connecting canal from the Belgian front to the English front near Ypres. A “Great War bike ride” along the battlefields and war memorials in andaround Ypres. A very impressiveday, that ends with the daily Last Post-ceremony inthe “Menen”-gate in Ypres, very near the beautiful (rebuild) historical center with the ‘Grote Markt’.

Today we will visit the very center of the legendary Belgian beer brewing history. Biking to Poperinge we will visit the hop farm Lemahieu and then visit the Abbey of St. Sixtus, where Trappist monks brew the famous
Westvleteren beer, many times proclaimed to be the best beer in the world. Of course, you will have a taste of it. We will bike along the Lo-canal and visit the picturesque city of Lo. It has a beautiful Belfort. At the end of the Lo-canal we arrive in the beautiful medieval town Veurne. Visit to the “Grote Markt“ and the historical center.

In the morning we bike trough the nature reserve “De Moeren“ to the well-known French harbor Dunkirk and in the afternoon we bike back along the French and Belgian beach to Nieuwpoort where the river Yzer flows into the North Sea.

In Nieuwpoort we will bike along the “ Ganzenpoot “, the point where 5 different waterways come together. We will follow the famous “Coastal Cycle Route “between the beach resorts De Panne and Oostende and cross the river mouth of the Yser on a ferry.We will bike along the North Sea beach and in the dunes to Oudenburg.

Today we make a beautiful varied tour through the northern part of the Flemish small-scale Farmland with its Belgian “White-Blue cows“ (specially bred for its meat) and barley fields. Today you can cross another border and pay a visit to Sluis, a medieval fortified town in Zeeuws–Vlaanderen, the Southwestern part of the Netherlands.