Sunny Belgium returns

Well, awesome weather here in Belgium! After a nice afternoon spent in Brugges with Tex, doing a little shopping and some patio sitting, I awoke today to an awesome & sunny day here. Bought myself a cool Brugges Football Club team scarf and helped Tex to find some souvenirs and gifts as he heads home in a week. After the shopping and wandering the ancient streets, we found ourselves a patio and settled down for some 'man time' with a few beers. Managed to find the correct bus, and made it home for dinner. Nice to spend a day completely away from the bike, helped tremendously with both the physical and mental recovery. Got to bed nice and early and here we are, 25 degrees and sunny. Got a nice 3 hour ride in in the late morning, rode the canals down into Gent and then back. Kind of nice to follow some nice new routes and to see a bit of a new city. Gent is a little different from Brugges, not nearly as old (still many old buildings and cobbled roads, but not quite as medieval looking) and also more of a young non-tourist crowd. Apparently it is know as more of a university town. Plus these cool canals seem to branch out through and all around it, I had to be careful not to get too far off my route and get lost on the many windy roads. Not too much exploring, before I headed off back along the canals back home. Nice sandwich for lunch, some tea, and here we are watching another awesome stage of le Tour. The house is getting quite busy right now for a lot of people, especially poor Nate the mechanic, getting ready for the stage races. Spare bikes for every rider, many spare wheels have been re-built after a hard season of racing, Bernard has been talking with Discovery Channel Pro team trying to score us more tyres, wheels, bikes and food from them to add to what we have. Plus all the packing is going on and final preparations are being made by the riders leaving for Liege tomorrow. The house will be oddly empty tomorrow when I get up... Discovered this sweet coconut & lime sauce which I used on my fresh fish with some rice provencal and broccoli last night, works magic with fish! Not sure what lies for dinner tonight, I have some sausages, so maybe some sausages with pasta... Time will tell, perhaps potatoes...