Biking through Car-free Leuven 2020 and having a drink with the men of the year

Leuven always plans its car-free Sunday differently from the vast majority in Belgium.  While most of the cities are car-free the 3rd weekend of September, this is the weekend before university reopens and hundreds of students are arriving and checking into their dorms etc.  So in Leuven we had our car-free weekend on the last Sunday of September 2020.

Usually there isn't too much happening on such a day. I would expect the city center buzzing with concerts or lots of fun happenings but I know now that that is not the case.  There's usually mobility info stands, some biking parcours etc but not like a big festival festivities. Now with the pandemic even less so. 

But it is the first year that all of us have the skills to ride a bike and on top of that, the inner ringroad around Leuven was car-free too. So we took the opportunity to go for a little bike ride with the children "on the bike you can normally never ride".  Well they can ride on the bike road normally but now we could ride in the middle of the road and we took on purpose the cars-only viaduct. Woohoo look at us up here! 





Haha, someone was in the mood for a bike race :D.



We had a small stop at the harbour where there was a small dance workshop and where I looked at the ever ongoing reconversion with old brewery warehouses getting torn down and replaced by modern hip lofts. 




The swollen Dijle river after the storm Odette rain
The swollen Dijle river after the storm Odette rain


With a little detour via a part of Kessel-Lo, we returned to the ringroad of Leuven and headed home.  Kessel-Lo wasn't car free but is full of nice bike roads anyhow. 








The bike spiral at the train station that got finished earlier this year after years of construction issues.  "wheaaaaa wheeeee, I love a road that turns and turns and turns mommy"



In Kessel-Lo we had a nice stop with the Men of the Year of '80 that had set up a bar there that was well organised in pandemic times.   Widely spaced tables in open air, one per "bubble" , desinfections and clear rules but also fun child animation that was well approved by our boys.  We enjoyed a little break at the first event of the "Jaartallen" I could attend this year.   Fun to taste the 80 beer from this group.  Good to see that the pandemic didn't kill all activities :). 





















Comments

Vief said…
Ik had op autoloze zondag graag in Brussel gefietst waar de dochter woont. Het is er dit jaar door de slechte Coronacijfers niet van gekomen, maar volgend jaar wil ik dat zeker wel doen.
Het zag er daar heel fijn uit bij jullie. De jongens zullen allicht goed geslapen hebben achteraf.
Anne said…
Altijd leuk hè, op zo van die plekken kunnen komen waar dat anders nooit kan.
Ik moest hard lachen met dat RODANIA! :-D

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