Europe 2018 - July 19 - Stein, NL to Diest, Belgium

Thursday - July 19

This part of The Netherlands is quite narrow so it was only about 2 miles to the Belgium border.

We were there by 9:15.

A World War II memorial. We liked the look of those flags hanging down.

Our route took us along a canal that parallels the Meuse River, the border between Belgium and The Netherlands through here. There was a lot of fishing going on.

That's a lot of wood but small diameter. We think that it might be a paper mill.

We were enjoying the shade and the nice path.

So were a lot of other people.

Lunch at Bruno Foodcorner near Eik. We think they were trying to decide what English accent Donna was using.

The Albert Canal has some BIG barges.

And some really big locks to move them up and down the canal.

They were doing some repairs/maintenance on this lock so we could see how deep the locks are.

That is Hasselt in the distance.

The Beach Club was a welcome sight since it had restrooms and cold drinks.

One more time across the canal.

Overdemerstraat bridge at the north end of Hasselt. About 20 minutes later our route left the canal so navigating became a little more complicated.

In the town of Lummen. Such a different kind of mailbox that we thought our young granddaughters would find it interesting too.

In Diest, in search of the Tourist Information Office and some local maps.

They sent us to this bookstore where we did find a map that met our needs. That is Donna's loaded bike leaning against the wall.

It is always fun to see all the different kinds of bikes people use here and how much they are a part of everyday life.

We checked in to our very small hotel (3 rooms and we were using 2 of them). Our host even had peach tea for us when we arrived. Then we went in search of dinner.

We ended up at Nicky's Catwalk which had a very interesting statue that is the icon for the restaurant. It led to some very lively conversation over a delicious meal!

Nicky even promised to send Doug a copy.

We did some moseying around town after dinner.

It was a pleasant end to a pleasant day.