For the first time in ages the sun was shining in a clear blue sky. Spring was in the air and escaping to the countryside seemed like a very good idea. Unfortunately, Belgium was in the grip of a nine day train strike, leaving no other option than to hop on the bike. South of Brussels is a thin strip of the Flemish Brabant, part of the Groene Gordel separating the city from Wallonia.
It is an area of historic villages with ancient churches, vast forests and rolling agricultural land, medieval fortified farms and splendid castles. Perfect for a day exploring in nature. First though, I had a stop to make within the city limits. The Abbaye du Rouge-Cloître, or the Red Cloister, sounds like something from Game of Thrones, rather than a former 14th century Augustinian Priory nestled on the edge of the magnificent Sonian Forest.
In the 16th century it was wealthy and powerful. Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, and 17th century Europe’s most powerful woman, Isabel of Spain, stayed here. Despite this, it was closed down even before the French Revolution arrived to fully secularised it. Now a pleasant park with an art gallery and bistro, it is a shadow of its former glory. The long disappeared church once contained paintings by Rubens.
From here, a steep cobbled track took me up and into the forest, not before spotting two statues: one a young woman looking towards Flanders, the other an older woman gazing back at her into Brussels. I soon found myself on the edge of Leopold II’s Tervuren estate where he built a colonial museum using wealth violently extracted from Congo. In the village of Huldenberg, I was greeted by a massive church on a hill.
If you cycle in the Belgian countryside, you soon come to hate with a passion the sections of cobbled road. These aren’t nice smooth cobbles that might just about be tolerable to cycle on. No, these are massive, uneven cobbles so poorly maintained they rearrange your spine as you bounce over them. There were plenty of cobbles over the next 15km of farmland I passed through, including steep hills. Pure agony.
I was now heading towards Leuven, but swerved away from the ancient university town towards the villages of Bertem and Leefdaal. I was looking for something unusual in Leefdaal, a small church little more than a chapel, said to be the final resting place of Saint Verona. This 9th century royal was the daughter of the German Emperor, Ludwig I, the son of Charlemagne. At this spot she claimed God spoke to her.
Given how ancient this chapel is, and its Imperial links, it is remarkably well hidden. So much so, initially I cycled past it and had to return (up a big hill) to find it. Luckily it had a bench where I could sit and listen to birdsong in the sun. A couple of kilometres later I was bumping over more cobbles when Leefdaal Castle appeared. Today, the castle is mostly 17th century, but dates to the 11th century.
A short distance from the castle is a monument to a USAF Liberator bomber that crashed on the night of 26 November 1944. Miraculously missing the nearby village and castle, it did destroy a local inn. In the pretty village of Vossem I stopped to have a look at the 12th century Church of Saint Paul facing a bar called In Den Congo. The seemingly indelicate name is presumably a nod to the fact that Tervuren is nearby.
From here it was a long slog through the suburbs of south Brussels to get home. This is an upmarket part of town, there were even horse stables. The contrast to north Brussels where I live was stark. There was a beer with my name on it in St. Catherine’s, but I made a stop at the town hall of Wezembeek-Oppem for a peculiar 1970s statue, Straufhain. It’s named after a German village, but its meaning remains mysterious.
