Stage 3: Virton - Crezilles

Stage 3: Virton -> Crezilles, France.

A rooster and a goat. Who would ever think about a rooster and a goat when you are in the lovely scene of the Ardennes. A place where we had our final climb to reach the camping where the chalets are. On top of the hill, in the middle of the woods. Apple trees all over the place. Arnold had bought a box of apples from the shop in his town, the very day that we left the Netherlands. So we didn’t pick apples from tree at the chalet no. 45 in the morning, but put those apples in the blender.

But that was after I woke up, -in what I thought in the middle of a bunch of goats-, what appears only to be one. And a rooster. That were the only sounds you could hear in the house at 07:00 AM. We agreed upon a late departure for the 3rd stage, because the Hotel where we are expected in Crezilles, only starts checking-in on 18:00. So we are all allowed to stay in bed until 07:30. The breakfast stuff has been prepared already, after we finished our dinner yesterday evening (we ate very tasty macaroni, I even saw guys, I will not give names, who ate 3 portions)  and had an Irish coffee and a couple of drinks.

The weather is fine, there is hardly any wind. Sitting out-side on the terras typing this blog, missing my first cup of coffee (I would wake-up everybody if I would start the coffeemaker right now) I give this wake-up a 9 out of 10. Far away from the busy civilisation, birds are singing and only every now and then you can hear a car, telling that we are not in the middle of nowhere. So if you are looking for place to stay and enjoy the sounds of nature, go for fishing, hiking or biking, surplice your family with a stay in the Ardennes.

 In a couple of minutes the team will wake-up and shout for a coffee, so I got to go inside.

The breakfast is good, we keep it very slow today. We have plenty of time today.

At 10:00 AM we start heading to Crezilles. After a ride of approx. 55 km, the first coffee stop is at “Café Central”, a typical French Café. The kind waiter serves us a wonderful cup of Cappuccino. Very hot but exactly the stuff we needed after the ride.

Next stop is “Lac de Madine”, a nice lake at approx. 95 km of the ride. Just before the lake, we saw a nice house in the middle of the woods, a perfect spot for a coffee break. Entering the parking place, a nice lady came out of the house telling us, that the place was rented. So we kindly asked, if we could take our lunch here and she immediately invited us to please do so. When it started to rain, the men in charge came out and invited us to sit inside next to the fireplace. What a lovely bunch of people here.

Parking the car, unloading our kitchen and our Cook Arnold immediately took his role on the chair, sitting relaxed and giving his comments to everybody.

The soup is wonderful. A very good variation to all the sweet stuff we are eating during the ride.

When we were about to leave the place, the lady’s came out for having a cigarette. Starting a short chat, Henri found out, that the lady of the house celebrated her 50th anniversary. The moment to grab the magnetic etiket from the car and get her onto a nice picture. Check the album, to find her!!

In the afternoon, we passed a lot of small villages. The landscape is totally different compared to the Ardennes. It is more flat and the hills are more friendly. Although the Basecamp program (the program we used to create the routes said that stage 3 would took 500 altimetres, we had to climb 1.300 altimeters. According the calculations of Sergiu, the total of these 3 stages are already accumulated 4.000 altimeters.

We agreed in the morning to everything take today slow and we tried as much as we could to stick to that. The group is getting very used to each other. Jan had some pain in knee and we were very glad that he succeeded to finish the stage. Chapeau Jan, keep it rolling!!

We timed the route very well and 17:15 we arrived at the hotel. From the very beginning, we had a “click” with this guy. Gently and full of humour, he showed us the hotel facilities. Everything is taking very relaxed. We are the only guests today so we have the complete hotel for ourselves.

In about half an hour, this hotel looks exactly the same as our chalet yesterday. Stuff and equipment all over the place. Cleaning bikes, washing clothes, preparing recovery drinks. Etc… Each team member is taking his actions to get everything cleand up and prepared for the next day.

At a certain point, everybody is sitting on the terras, having a bear and relaxing. In a couple of minutes we’ll go to look for a restaurant to have a dinner.

Tomorrow we will ride towards Longeau-Percy. That’s gonna be only 125 km and 699 altimeters. According the knowledge of the 3 stages we already did, the guys are getting a ride of approx. 1.600 altemeters, but that we will tell them tomorrow afterwards. That would be much better for the team spirit I think. J

Chau for now.