Making Tracks to the Tip of Belgium, Arlon

Zagan the motorhome is hooked-up, for free, to mains electricity. This boggles Zagan’s mind. We’re in a free aire in Arlon, Belgium, which charges nothing for motorhomes to stay for up to 48 hours, provides free leccy and water for up to 5 vans, and asks for nothing in return (N49.69019 E5.81895). Wow. This is so far from my native England’s approach to motorhomes it feels like we’ve been welcomed as minor royalty.

We’re in! That’s the back of the fire station in front of us. Every now and again there’s a Hi-De-Hi camp sounding announcement, which we think is a shift change.

The weather’s pants folks. Googling ‘weather Menin’ yesterday, a row of rain clouds plastered themselves across the screen. Rain coming our way: for ever. Hmmm. Scouring the guidebooks, maps and databases of aires (this is a Zagan national pastime, and a much-loved one), we’d spotted a nice place in Tournai, just to the south of us (or Doornik in Flemish – Belgium’s famously confusing and divided when it comes to which language to use – Flemish in t’north, French for the t’southeners, a tiny bit to the east which prefers German and Brussels, where no-one has a clue which language to use). Toss-up time: a short nip south to a nice-looking city, or a blast further on to get us south. South, as in closer to the Med, rather than South as in Shackleton’s South, you understand. The coin spun, came down, landed, flipped a couple of times and settled on blast.

Maybe 4 hours we rolled, first south-east above Tournai, then east past Mons and Charleroi, and finally south-east again at Namur. Past Dinant we rolled until finally the km marker ticked down to zero here, at Arlons. Lots of names, but for us today, just lots of motorway. Toll-free motorway as it happens, pretty much devoid of traffic and on the whole gentle surfaces, and it’s got us almost down to Luxembourg. Erm, although we are actually in Luxembourg already? The area of southern Belgium called Luxembourg rather than the country of Luxembourg, which is a few clicks south, or the city of Luxembourg, which is 30km away. If you followed all of that, your next challenge is to understand ‘Macedonia’.

Anyway, flat land in the north gave way to wooded hills in the south. Zagan hitched back and forth between 4^th and 5^th, into and out of crawler lanes as we ploughed our way south. Whole stretches passed with just the odd vehicle in sight. Tourist signs by the wayside tempted us with sunny images of towns tucked into the bends of rivers and the like, but the drizzle continued to splatter down, encouraging us onwards.

I should fess up here: I’m not a big Belgium fan. Past trips have taken across the country a few times, and I spent an interesting few months nipping into and out of the country for work when my old company were forced to acquire a couple of decrepit power stations here. I must tell you about the Wednesday tannery stench from the leather processing plant next to the station outside Brussels one day – my nostrils still auto-clench like a seal at the thought. Ju and I have supped Trappist ale here, munched on chocolaty delights, peered out from ramparts, gawped at enormous barges being lifted into the sky, spied fab architecture, teared up in WW1 memorials and enjoyed the ability to sleep in our motorhome in so many places. Maybe it’s just a bit too close to England to get me excited these days? Dunno.

Charlie’s bed position once we’re parked up, perfect for a full view of the van, so he can dash out to beg for scraps at a moment’s notice.

So here we are, Arlon, or about a mile from the town anyway. Our leisure batteries are taking a sauna, being recharged to the hilt with the hook-up. The option of firing up the satellite telly remains a distinct possibility (we heard something about Terry Wogan on the radio earlier, but couldn’t make it out in among the Flemish – hopefully the old fella’s fine). The rain’s stayed good to its promise and has remained with us on and off, and the wipers have worked, although they’ve decided their ‘sleep position’ is now at 30 degrees from horizontal. Hopefully it’ll hold off for a bit tomorrow and we’ll take a wander into toon for a look-see.

Check it out! Our own (FREE!!!) electricity, water and drain/loo-empting point.

Three’s Feel at Home package doesn’t work in Belgium by the way, so we have no t’Interweb. This blog post comes to you from the past. Woooooaaaaaoooooo (ghostly blog noise there for you). By the time this wings its way out to the web, we’ll have shooshed through Luxemburg and back into La France – probably another couple of days.

Right, I’m off. Cheers! Jay