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With a Harley to Cap Gris-Nez

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Thursday , July 18, 2002

This week is the first week of my summerholiday. The Harley is begging for a ride and the sun is shining so I decide to make a daytrip to the North of France.

It is ten o'clock when I depart from home in the direction of Vlissingen. After filling my tank I take the secondary road past Rilland, Kruiningen and Yerseke. The I drive past Kapelle and 's-Gravenpolder, past Borssele to the harbour of Vlissingen.
In Vlissingen the ferryboat to Breskens in Zeeuws Vlaanderen, is just arrived so I don't have to wait and after paying 4.40 Euro, I can drive right on the upper cardeck of the ferryboat.

After the short trip to Breskens, twenty or thirty minutes I think, I disembark the boat in the harbour of Breskens and take the road past the little villages Boerenhol and Groede to Sluis.
The landscape here is very flat and wide and it is a joy to ride here with the rumbling sound of the big twin beneath me.


The road to Sluis

Sluis is a typical bordertown. Some old fortifications from wilder times and a lot of nice restaurants and shops from all times and also a lot of sexshops from more modern times

When I arrive in Sluis I park the Harley at a nice square, next to a few other Harley's with Belgian license plates. It's a quarter past twelve now so I can use a cup of coffee.


I parked the bike on a square in Sluis

First I want to check out a Harley shop that I vissited in the past but on the place it's used to be is a fashion shop so I walk on through the shopping streets of Sluis until I find a nice restaurant to have a coffee. After enjoying a coffee with a nice warm applepie with whipped cream I walk on, back to the bike.

When I leave Sluis, I cross the Belgian border and get on the road to Knokke-Heist, an old seaside village on the Belgian Northsea coast. In Knokke-Heist is a Harley and Titan dealer that I would like to visit but when I arrive at the shop, they are just having their lunchbreak. Well, window shopping is nice too and there are some nice bikes in the shops window so after checking out the bikes in the window I get on my own bike again and get on the road again to Zeebrugge, the next seaside town.
I try to find a road close to the seaside and after a while I drive into Zeebrugge.


Arriving in Zeebrugge

Through the streets of Zeebrugge I drive on, leaving Zeebrugge in the direction of Blankenberge. It is a nice road, right behind the dunes. Past Blankenberge and some small villages like "De Haan" I drive to Oostende. Oostende is a bigger village with a real harbour and has, like Zeebrugge the terminal for a ferryboat to England.

I'm realy surprised that the speed limit on this coastal road is 90 km/h. The roadsides are packed with parked cars from people going to the beach who are crossing the street with their picknick baskeds, children and so on while in some other parts of Belgium, on much safer roads, the speed limit is 70 km/h.




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Last modified: 7 April 2021
Copyright, Jan Krijtenburg, 2006