Bike Trip to the Ardennes

Last weekend we went on a trip to the Ardennes by motorbike. We, that would be Maarten, who is a former fellow university student and now a good friend, his cousin Ben, Lynn, a colleague PhD student from IMEC, and her boyfriend Dries. Or, from left to right: Ben, Wim, Maarten, Dries and Lynn:

Why on Earth would we take a girl on a motorbike trip, I can hear those who own a bike think. Well, for cooking, obviously! However, as you can see from the black spaghetti pot, that was not such a good idea:

But we have to admit that Lynn did a good job saving our lives by keeping us away from the tempting abbey ales. Oh yes, those are all hot chocolates there:

Lynn must have known that I would put the spaghetti-disaster story on my blog: afterwards, she did not want to be recognized in the pictures anymore:

Obviously, another way not to be recognized was taking the pictures herself. Here, we are in the abbey of Orval. Next year, we’ll just leave the bikes at home so that we can pay a “decent” visit to the brewery!

Dries and Lynn went home on Sunday evening. Maarten, Ben and I stayed until Monday evening. By then, we were getting a little fed up of each other, so Maarten started to talk to the ducks rather than to us:

The Castle of Horst, home of Johan the Red Knight, was our last stop together:

Here, our roads split. An amazing weekend, without accidents or bad weather, with an excellent atmosphere and beautiful rides had come to an end.

Last year, we were three. This year, Dries and Lynn joined us and assured us afterwards that they would very probably come again next year. Any other volunteers will of course be very welcome too…