Channel Hop

Can you really take a day trip to Belgium and be home before the pubs shut?

- Dave Owen

We really did take a day trip to Bruges, there and back, same day, and it happened like this. We were visiting our friend Will in Rye, Sussex, but he had to go to work in the middle of our visit and suggested we do a quick trip across the Channel while he was out. So that’s what we did, and as Bruges is only 65 miles from Calais (and Belgium is famous for chocolate and beer) we thought, why not extend the standard booze run to take that in as well?

So the next day at dafto’clock in the morning we were on the road to the tunnel, and £30 later (not bad for a day return for the bike and two adults) I rode onto the train and parked next to half a dozen like-minded riders. Half an hour later, we were disembarking at Calais.

Now given the time at our disposal, we decided not to seek out more interesting (but slower) roads to Bruges and just headed for the motorways: N216 first, then A216 (signed Paris) and two miles on the A16 (signed Dunkerque and Belgium). In fact, we were over the border very quickly, which saw the road number change to E40, as well as signs for Bruges. The E40 is a wide open main road with little traffic, giving plenty of time to acclimatise while becoming familiar with multi-lingual signs. The scenery, sad to say, was nothing special, give or take the odd windmill.