What a hard wake up today! It was cold and rainy out and we were cozy in our sleeping bags. We finally emerged at 7:30am, wiped off the mud that had splashed over our things from the rain last night, and set off.
We made it only 8km before our first stop at the “Cactus” supermarket, one of the few that are open on Sundays in Luxembourg. We picked up milk for our muesli, a baguette for lunch, and some pastries for second breakfast.
We’ve noticed that signage, and language in general, in Luxembourg, is quite confusing. Signs seem to be randomly in French, German, Luxembourgish, or English. People seem to all speak English, but it’s very awkward trying to decide how to say hello.
Today moved very slowly. We meandered all over the place on dedicated cycle routes through farms to arrive at Luxembourg City by 37km. We were already tired and still cold and Viki was a bit fed up with the ups and downs of the cycle paths. So we’ve rerouted to Brussels away from the cycle paths of eurovelo 5 and will just follow roads, based on Strava heat maps. We booked a hotel in Brussels two nights from now to give us something to look forward to (and it was only €26).
The afternoon went more smoothly. Still cold, but at least we were back on roads. We had lunch at 5pm, at around 70km, desperately behind our normal schedule.
The excitement of the day came shortly after, when our road was closed and the detour looked like it would add up 30-60 minutes. We went around the signs, along the closed road, and found a bridge washed out. It then took us half an hour to get ourselves and our bikes around the “closed” fencing, across the interim gangway over the river, and over the “closed” fencing on the other side. Luckily there was a French couple trying to do the same thing (without bikes) and they helped get our bikes over the fencing.
The final hour or so was hilly and cold, but the sun made a brief appearance from behind the clouds. We’re now camped at a picnic area beside the main road.
