Continued Report
Because of its length, this travel report has been split into three separate parts. This is part two.
Part one covers general information.
Part two, this part, covers the hotel (Velotel) and days one, two and three.
Part three covers days four, five and six.

The Hotel: Velotel
It may be a little surprising to learn that the Category C hotel option is itself rated as a 4-star hotel, the same as both the Category B (NH Hotel) and A (Hotel Navarra) options. Those hotels are both undoubtedly better-located for convenient access to Brugge city centre, for the Velotel is a little isolated on the edge of town: around 4 km from the centre of Brugge. There are Lidl and Aldi supermarkets in the vicinity and an Albert Heijn not much further away, though, Belgian supermarkets seems to be closed more than I’m used to at home. By bike, there’s an easy route into the centre, which takes about 15 minutes, passing by yet another supermarket. The hotel also has a special deal with a taxi company (from hotel to centre or back, EUR10.00 each way; you obtain vouchers in Reception — unfortunately, this deal doesn’t cover travelling to the station) or there’s a bus. So, those people choosing this hotel should be prepared either to travel into the centre in the evenings, or to book the half-board option, because there’s nowhere else for evening meals in the neighbourhood of the hotel.

As its name suggests, though, the hotel is geared-up for cycling. It has excellent facilities for storing cycles and as well as the routes provided by VOS Travel (Rad und Reisen’s local agent), the hotel now has 25 other suggested routes of its own for which they will provide plans free of charge. The hotel is also only a hundred metres or so from knooppunt 31, from which the provided routes start. (The VOS Travel routes also give directions from/to NH Hotel, Brugge.)

The hotel seems to have strengthened its bike theme since my last visit, with the use of bicycle forks and wheels to support each end of the desk in my room — a quirky and perverse idea in my opinion and one which I can’t understand I didn’t notice on my previous stay. (I looked at my photographs from then: my previous room was not like this.) I don’t think the idea works, for the bicycle tyres have to be completely deflated, which is neither a good look, nor an enticing prospect for a bike.

The hotel has changed how electrical power is provided to the room: you no longer have to insert your room key card into a slot, a definite improvement in that regard. There was no power point near the desk (apart from the one used for the coffee machine), so I had to move a chair to beside the bed and use my laptop there, powered from the socket next to the bed. Beside the bed there’s only a smallish shelf, not much room for things you might want close-by overnight — mobile phone, clock, glasses... teddy bear (only joking — you wouldn’t leave your teddy bear on the shelf, would you!). The room had a fridge, coffee machine, safe, hair drier and heated towel rail.

The hotel’s coronavirus policy is to request the visitor to “bubble in your room”, meaning that hotel staff will not enter the room during the period of the stay. This includes the house-keeping staff. Instead, each day a plastic bag containing new towels, tea/coffee supplies, toiletries and bin liners is placed outside the room in the morning. The visitor uses these supplies to replenish those in the room, puts used items into the plastic bag and places this and any refuse outside the room for collection during the day. I didn’t need so much stuff to be supplied every day, so I spoke to the room service staff member. Unfortunately, when she wasn’t there, I got the full load of supplies. By the end of the tour, I had several unused bags of towels accumulating in my room. I thought the arrangements a bit over-the-top: when staying in Dresden in July, there was no such policy, though the reverse side of the “Do not Disturb” label was “Please do not clean my room today” (you didn’t get restocked with supplies, though).

Day 1 (Friday) Arrival in Brugge
In fact, I’d arrived in Brugge two days earlier, at the end of the Flanders Bike Trail tour (Rad & Reisen Travelcode 050); this was the departure day for that tour as well as being the arrival day for the Bruges Home-based tour.

So, with no travelling required to reach the start location, I had a day available for exploring Brugge. Except that, as was the case too often in this tour, it was raining, so I waited in my hotel room until it cleared, hoping that’d be the end of the rain for the day.

Day 2 (Saturday) Castles of Torhout
For a change, the weather was looking good and I set off in high spirits, greeting every cyclist I encountered. This backfired somewhat when one gentleman took it as a request for help and, on learning I was heading for Torhout, proceeded to give directions, saying I should cycle with him a short way and then he would show me where to go. His route was not the one in the instructions, but it did take me to places in Brugge I hadn’t been to before, specifically, to Canada Bridge, and would have been a perfectly good route had I continued on it.

Returning to the official route, I passed the castle of Bloemendale without even noticing it; I think it’s hidden behind trees and the only evidence of it from the street is the gateway. A few kilometres later we arrive at the woodland surrounding Kasteel d’Koude Keuken (nicely translated by Google as Castle Cold Kitchen; apparently, it’s now an hotel, so a cold kitchen would definitely not be good!). Previously when I saw it, scaffolding was up, but all that’s gone now, affording much better views, though they’re still constrained by the woodland.

Prior to reaching the next castle, we cycle through woods and come across a memorial to two youngsters who died in a motorcycle accident after an evening at the cinema. This is close to knooppunt 94 and I suggest a slightly longer route to reach here, which would enable one, and possibly two, extra castles to be seen. Instead of cycling from knooppunt 70 to knooppunt 94, my suggestion is to go from 70 to 59 and then to 94. This would take you to the gate of Kasteel Tillegem and close to Kasteel Tudor without adding greatly to the distance.

After the memorial, you come to an area of heathland where, in late August, the heather made the ground pink with the colour of its flower. After another 10 km of cycling, Kasteel d’Aertrycke is reached. You first catch a view of it across a field with a line of trees opposite. The cycle path leads right up past the back of the castle, but a better view comes from the front, across from the lake (turn left immediately after the two other buildings, or enter the castle grounds at the first gate you encounter, rather than the second one used by the cycle path). I did a complete circuit: into the castle grounds, round the lake and back out onto the road and into the grounds again.

Shortly after leaving Kasteel d’Aertrycke, I came across a field of fallow deer, obviously being farmed, for they had tags in their ears, but still a sight I’m not used to.

Kasteel Wijnendale is reached very soon afterwards. It is open to the public (EUR 5.00; closed Mondays and Tuesdays; check opening times), the entranceway being relatively inconspicuous (very close to knooppunt 85). The elderly owners of the castle live in one wing and, to protect their privacy, do not allow the public to walk round the outside of the castle. The other, more recent wing of the castle is a museum, to which your entrance fee gains admission. I arrived shortly before the castle opened to the public, so rode on a bit further to where a good view can be had. Absorbed with taking photos, I was surprised to receive an electric shock, and only then realised the gate there is electrified.

While visiting the castle, it started raining. I hoped it would clear before I left, but, in fact, it was as heavy as ever as I continued the journey. The route goes out along a disused railway line, the Groene 62 route, towards Oostende. As the rain reached a new intensity, I encountered a few other cyclists who looked as wet as I felt. “Enjoying it?” “Yes!” (They must have been lying!) And then it began to clear. The route passes along a couple of small canals, past the windmill “De Witte Molen”, a water tower (“It looks like an airport control tower without an airport,” said a friend reviewing my photographs) and, after crossing above a couple of motorways, suddenly we’re on the (Gent-)Brugge-Oostende canal again. For variety, a different route returns to the Velotel.

Day 3 (Sunday) Bulskampveld and Gent-Brugge(-Oostende) Canal
This was the morning I discovered I would have to switch bikes. It was raining again, so the time taken to accomplish the switch was of little consequence, as I would have been reluctant to go out anyway. There was no sign of an end to it and as time went on, with frequent checks out of the window, I realised I could either sit in my room fretting all day, or get out, face the rain and perhaps salvage some of the day if it did clear up later. This is exactly as it turned out, though only a few hundred metres from the hotel, I did turn round during an absolutely torrential downpour, but turned back again only seconds later as it eased. That was the last of my wavering.

So, the early part of the ride was in the wet. It’s a pity because it goes out through an attractive route and well-to-do neighbourhoods, which you can’t really enjoy in the rain.

In the neighbourhood of Beernem station there were changes to the knooppunt network (signs with yellow rather than white backgrounds) indicating a different route to knooppunt 23. At the station itself, works were going on, so the instruction to take a tunnel under the station wasn’t possible; I took the road bridge over the track instead, arriving at knooppunt 23, from where the route could be followed as described in the instructions.

Shortly after this, I arrived opposite what the instructions call ‘a magnificent building of the psyciatric centre “Sint-Amandus”’. Because of the rain, I hadn’t taken any photographs that day, so was determined to take one, thinking, at this rate, it could be the only one I took all day. Minutes later, the route enters a nature reserve Domein Lippensgoed – Bulskampveld and passes the bird and wildlife sanctuary Vlaams Opvangcentrum voor vogels en wilde dieren. By now the rain had subsided, so I stopped for more photographs. It turns out the sanctuary is not open to the public, though you can see some of the birds outside.

A short distance beyond the nature reserve, the route passes by Kasteel Drie Koningen (Three Kings) and then, a few kilometres later, takes to the Gent-Brugge(-Oostende) canal for the return trip to Brugge. Along the canal, there are old WW2 bunkers, which seem to have been turned into habitats for wildlife and, at the bridge connecting the villages of Oostkamp and Moerbrugge, there’s a monument to Canadian forces who fought the Battle of Moerbrugge.

In Brugge, the route to the Velotel continues along the canal, on the cycle path round the perimeter of the city. If you take this route, you’ll pass some of the old city gates and a series of four windmills, before reaching the same path as used outbound at the start of the day. Instead of this, I cut through Minnewater Park (the same as the route to the NH Hotel) and then, as a bit of fun, followed the horse-drawn carriages to the market place.

Photographs
This section of my report covers three days, but I am allowed two photographs, so I’ve decided to select them from the two cycling days, one photograph from each.

In my previous report of this tour, I included a photograph of Kasteel van Wijnendale taken from a viewing point (where I received an electric shock this time round). On this tour, I was able to visit the castle, so include another photo from closer up, showing it to be a moated castle. The lighter part of the castle, on the right, is the oldest, and is the part where the elderly owners now live, the rest being open to the public as a museum. (Day 2.)

My second photograph comes from the “Bulskampveld” ride which I did on Day 3 and is of Kasteel Drie Koningen (a private residence), seen towards the end of the ride shortly before arriving at the Gent-Brugge(-Oostende) canal.

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