Day 26 – 20 km walked – a total of 558 km - St. Truiden

We did not exactly fight over who would write this blog because we both felt we might end up writing an angry tirade about the lack of signed walk ways or at least reliable walking maps in Belgium. If you ever wondered what the Romans did for the Belgians, have a look at the map and the road between Tongeres and St. Truiden. It is straight and busy and we ended up walking most of it today. We tried once to venture off to walk between quiet fruit trees but ended up at a dead end where a river blocked our way and the only option left was to retrace our steps.

Gary was a trooper, he had not slept well last night and his rucksack felt incredibly heavy this morning. He could not get comfortable and ended up with back ache. But he just walked on and on and eventually we made it.

He cheered up when we realised that due to the Champions League Final, the town had organised a Ladies shopping evening. We have never seen that many women all dressed up, lingering in a town center. The weather was fantastic (and rather hot) today so the ladies had dressed appropriately.

They are waiting all to do this:

We had lost a lot of time this morning with trying to find a map useful for walkers. We had to wait for a bookshop to open and they sold us a 1:50.000 map which in Germany worked really well. But not here. Same problem as the last couple of days. We can not rely that what is on the map and what is there in reality matches or can be used by the public. Dem you are quite right, we need to fly in the Ramblers Association and get this lot up to speed.

But when you see all the cyclist in their professional gear, flying past us, you realise that in Belgium they are simply more interested in cycling than walking. Eddie Merx has a lot to answer for!

Part of the reason why Gary could not sleep last night was because he tried to be organised and find accommodation for us for the next stages. He simply could not find anything on the route we initially wanted to walk. It seems there is not a lot available outside of larger towns. This is why we opted for St. Truiden today.

But when we fought our way through all those women mingling and finally arrived at the Tourist Information to find that it had closed about 10 minutes before. A man came out, so I thought maybe they stayed open late and went past him to go in. He was quite abrupt and said it was closed. Well obviously it wasn't because he just came through the open door.

We asked him for some help to find a hotel and got a pretty unsatisfying answer involving the word closed and that he was the organiser for the Ladies shopping day and had no time. So I went past him through the door because I had seen a lady still moving about inside. He was close to man-handling me to stop me but I was faster :)). Inside the nice lady organised us a hotel within three minutes and we were happy.

Accommodation is much more expensive in Belgium, where we would pay an average of 70 Euros in Germany we end up paying about 100 Euros in Belgium. Supply and demand I reckon. I think my next venture is a chain of well priced and equipped hotels in Belgium.

Gary's choice of song today is: 'Fuck forever' by Babyshambles, the only thing that cheered him up again after we had to backtrack our walking today to get back to the main road.

Gary adds:

Doris was kind enough to cite me as today's super trooper – cue for a song? – but actually she was more so but I am told I will have to do that another day.

The only thing that Doris missed out was how close we came to a siege in the Tourist Office. As Doris headed for the nice lady at the counter, despite the man's protestations that they were closed, I, who had not seen the nice lady, was heading towards the front door, intending to arrive before the unhelpful man.

I visualised my sturdy walking-boot against the foot of the door, blocking his exit, as I mentally rehearsed the words, “I need a hotel and a map and I need it now,” rapidly followed by, “then you are going to have to call the police.” So would begin the siege of Grote Markt, with Doris and I henceforth being known as the Sint Truiden two.

We have had better days than today but I think that I best leave it there and look forward to a new one tomorrow – all part of the journey.