Bluesky Tour - Episode 8 - 4 countries in 1 day for my first time!

 (continued from Episode 7)

My Dutch time runs out and the miserable weather doesn't allow much to do unfortunately. Imagine that during these 3+ weeks I'm here I only jumped in the pool a few times, less than the fingers of one palm. So I picture the cute "aftermath" of one more rainfall:

I've lost count on how many times I've said that nature is the best artist ever.

It's not just me the lazy boy around, the same goes for the cat I take care of although he loves to be lazy while I hate it. His laziness allows more birds to approach the house though, including this blackbird:

As you can see our old pal Arie only watches but doesn't even attempt to catch anymore:

Not a surprise for a 16 years old diabetic guy.

However, there's another soul lacking in action around, actually more than anyone else and that's one of the 4 chickens. The last 2 days this poor creature stays away from the rest ones, idle and is not even attracted by the treats I propose her. No eggs too. Fortunately my friends are back to handle the issue.

How lovely to meet up again with my dear ones. Pity I gotta leave their lovely place on this cold and rainy late July morning. A long rainy ride ahead to make it to Germany SE of Luxembourg doesn't allow much time to spend off the saddle. My bike waits for me to load it:

We hug and wish we meet again sometime soon.

I leave Heeze behind on the coldest morning so far. Pure misery for my Mediterranean body but a beauty to cross those little towns heading South:

At some point I start wondering if Google Maps know what they're doing cause I'm led to ride on roads like this:

No complains at all, much better than riding in dense civilisation but looks a bit too rural to me as I head towards Belgium. Definitely much more interesting than riding on the A2:

I continue South, by pass Maastricht and here I am entering Belgium:

Belgium has much cheaper fuel than NL so now it's a good chance to fill up. I arrive at the gas station with more than 520km done after the previous fill up. What a joy to see my machine still able to achieve such low consumption like it used to when brand new, now 164000km later. With a range like this and a shitty weather like the Dutch one I was able to spend all these weeks still having German fuel in my tank. Actually I've in the Netherlands 2 times on my bike (4 in total) and never had to buy any of their fuel 🙂

While I'm having some water at the gas station and decide to wear something more as I'm freezing my ass of, I also decide to include Luxembourg in my ride. Never been there, who knows when the next chance will come so I take the risk of getting more wet than I should in order to grow my list of countries visited. They say it's nice so as long as it doesn't rain too much how bad can it be?

I ride on and shortly after rain starts:

When I decide that I can't cope with it without all my waterproof gear on the situation looks like this before I stop at this parking lot:

It's freezing too. I get some hope from the fact that it looks like the rain goes East so heading South to Luxembourg might spare me some. Not exactly the case, yet at least, as things now on the E42 look like this:

South Belgium on N62 looks nice with some winding hilly parts that are more than welcome after all these days in flatter than flat NL. Traffic and rain reduce the fun dramatically though:

My 1st time in Luxembourg!

Looks nice, I'm glad for the detour and the more dry conditions:

Only thing is that for some reasons local bikers don't respond at my gestures like all bikers tend. Is there a ticket for not keeping both hands on the handlebar? Or a snobbish thingy?

Luxembourg has much more beauties than I meet now on my way to Germany but this ride is a nice demo in case I come back. Time to enter the latter now:

Boring autobahn stuff with some roadworks but fortunately not too much traffic. And no rain at all despite the very cloudy sky. As I ride on 64 I decide to overtake this truck having too many of them already:

The young policeman caught it at the check point and stops me:

I couldn't have to deal with a younger and kinder policeman. In other words couldn't have been luckier. He tells me that's not allowed, I explain to him that the line was interrupted so I thought I could and lets me go on with a smile.

The ride ends with me arriving at my AirBnB near St. Wendel.

Here's my ride:

Time to rest - see you on the next one!