Arrondissement of Antwerp

After some lovely fresh Croissants, we got the bikes ready and Maddy loaded in the trailer. Today we are off to explore Mechelen as this is the only dry day for the next few days. We first headed down to Vrijbroekpark following the canal, then we headed into the center and had a look around. Lovely buildings and feels much like Holland. We headed out to Kasteel van Battenbroek which was a good 10 miles ride out, we followed marshland and lots of bridges.

Maddy was having little runs here and there and then put back into the trailer... when all of a sudden she decided she wasn't going in the trailer at all and was quite awkward to get back in... "Maddy you cannot run 16 miles more"! After finally getting Maddy in, we followed the marshland back to Mechelen. Once in the city centre we stopped for a "Latte Macchiato Speculoos" which was literally the best thing ever.

Afterwards we headed to Kazern Dossin, which was the Nazi's SS headquarters for Belgium in WW2, they used this as a base to round up all the Jews & Romanies' in Belgium. It is estimated that 28,000 people were sent from here to Auschwitz and only 1000 survived. There was a big memorial museum and a carriage which was used to to transport them, pretty daunting stuff really.

Afterwards we followed the Canal through more wetland and saw lots of bomb craters also from WW2, here we saw some stalks aswell. We headed back to the van and popped into the local Padel club for a shower, they kindly let us if we brought a drink. We had a beer and headed to Lidl to get some food. Chilled evening in the van whilst deciding which city to head to tomorrow. Great day, but knackered now after towing Maddy such a long way!Read more