Day thirteen – Wurzburg to Ghent
| Distance today – 610 km | Journey time – 7h 55m |
| Total trip distance – 3,756 km | Total journey time – 2d 10h 30m |
This was to be a very long drive. More than 600km and likely to be more than 6 hours….which turned out to be nearly 8 hours as the traffic into Koln (Cologne) and Ghent, which turned out to be Brussels then Antwerp then Ghent as Google re-routed us.
After a splendid castle breakfast, we headed off towards our lunchtime stop, Koln (Cologne), since it was roughly midway to Ghent. The motorway was quite busy in places and once again we saw how drilled European drivers are when traffic slows – the fast lane moves left (towards the central reservation) and the next lane moves right (towards the hard shoulder), making easy space for any emergency services that might need to get through the stationary traffic. It’s genius, but one that it’s unlikely that unruly British drivers at home would adhere to. Driving on mainland Europe is so much more pleasant…
Once in Koln we found a particularly average baked goods place for lunch, before finding others that looked nicer, then wandered for a bit, towards the cathedral. Something we do a lot of in the car is research history and geography for the places we visit, and whilst we knew Koln had been badly damaged in the Second World War we didn’t realise 95% was flattened by Allied bombing, and the population all but left. The cathedral, which was an incredible building, avoided damage.
Back in the car after filling up and collecting new car snacks (long flat thin crisps that tasted like Pringles) we headed on through Germany, across a short stretch of motorway through the Netherlands (sadly not stopping for a smoke and a pancake) then into Belgium. Traffic into Antwerp (our preferred route) and into Brussels (our non-preferred route) was equally horrendous but Google chose to re-route us towards Brussels, then up to Antwerp and across to Ghent. It seemed a lot longer distance but was quicker than sitting in 45 minutes of stationary traffic into Antwerp so we did what we were told.
Whilst driving we discovered very interesting fact about the Belgian flag – unlike most national flags it is shaped with an aspect ratio of 15:12 (most flags are 3:2), yet it is rarely displayed in this shape, especially outside of Belgium.
On arrival at the hotel (finding the car park was not easy) we got to our room then headed for dinner. Everywhere was really busy, but we found a place that sells unlimited ribs (and other things) which got excellent reviews and was absolutely packed. They gave us a 9pm table, so we wandered the dark streets for half an hour before feeding. Extremely good food and beer. Good choice.
We also had a good chat with the waiter, to find out a bit about languages in Belgium – he said it was simple….in Brussels you’ll speak either Dutch, German, French, English, in fact many languages; outside of Brussels the rest of the country speaks Dutch. Enough facts for the night, we went back to the hotel and to bed.
