After a nice Italian dinner near the center of Mons, we searched hotels and planned the route for today, and bam!, it is midnight. So we slept in a bit before starting the day with cappucinos, croissants, and a pain au chocolat.
It was wet again for a change. I think the last time I wore rain gear was when we cycled into Oxford, so I consider us very lucky so far. I put on the full rain gear and Liz, not wanting to feel like wearing a zip-loc bag, skipped the pants but wore the gaiters and jacket.
The route today would first take us to Maubeuge, almost as the crow flies but along a busy road, where we join EuroVelo 3, the European long-distance route going from Trondheim to Santiago de Compostela passing seven countries and running 5122km (sounds like an amazing trip). EuroVelo 3 connects Maubeuge with Paris, so ideal for us. Unless we decide to follow Reece and Anne’s route more accurately.
A bit after half-way to Maubeuge, we left Belgium and entered France. If the 1948 purchasing power differences between Belgium and France have persisted, we estimate our spending going down now. Reece and Anne spent their first night in France in Vervins (just a little West of Hirson where we are staying the night) and paid just $3 (about $30 today with inflation) for “a fancy dinner with soup, meat, salad, wine, coffee” AND their room, after which he noted: “France is the place, and we’ve been wasting our time elsewhere.” We hope we’ll feel similarly (but paid more than $30 for room and dinner already).
Just a little bit outside Maubeuge, EuroVelo 3 brought us to the “Voie Verte de l’Avesnois”, a former railway line that is now a nice foot, horse, and bike path through the “Parc naturel régional de l’Avesnois”, which they call “La p’tite Suisse du Nord”, so it felt a bit like home.
We spent about half of today’s distance on the Voie Verte, which, due to the rain, was rather muddy at times. After almost 40km of gravel and mud, it was then very nice to get back on asphalt in Glageon. So nice in fact, that we decided to skip the extra loop to Momignies that EuroVelo 3 wanted us to do and head straight for the camp site near Hirson where we booked a bungalow for the night.
Most of the shortcut followed a larger road, but then Google Maps routed us onto a very sketchy road in the woods, on which pushing the bike through deep mud was the only way to move for parts of the way. Thankfully, we could abort by going back to the larger road.
First thing we did after we arrived at the camp site Domaine de Blangy was cleaning our muddied bikes. No pressure washer this time but just a garden hose, a gear brush, and the useful chain sponge.
Taking off my socks, Liz spotted a tick crawling on my foot. Not too surprising after the jungle trek, and we did a careful search for any other unwanted passengers.
After a quick ride into town with the clean bikes for dinner supplies, we decided that our bungalow would be a good spot to relax and we booked for another night, so tomorrow will be a rest day, yay!
Total distance/elevation to date: 1883km/11’547m
Day 24 Route and Stats
The 1948 Tour 
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