Ghent to Oudenaard (33 kms cycled)

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Overcast again this morning!! So, with wet weather gear on - just in case - we continued our ride upstream along the Schelde/Escaut to the south and southwest. Once we rode out of Ghent (and before we rode into Oudenaarde), today's ride was an easy one along towpaths and through more farmland, a few villages and the occasional piece of forest.

We arrived in Oudenaarde, the capital of Flemish Ardennen, at about 2.30pm. We beat the Elodie into town again!! With an hour to kill before our brewery tour some of the group went to the tapestry museum situated on the canal and the rest of us rode into town.

After meeting up with the Elodie and very quickly loading our bikes, we rushed over the footbridge over the canal for our 3.30pm tour of the Liefmans Brewery. Hector welcomed us to the brewery and offered everyone a choice of a fruity beer, cherry beer or brown beer. Having already tried the cherry beer, I went for the fruity beer and Bernie put up his hand for a brown beer.

As we all sampled product - not that the glasses were sample sized, they were full glasses of beer - Hector filled us in on the history of the brewery from 1679 to the present day. After this we were taken on a tour of the old, historical part of the brewery before we progressed into the working areas of the brewery. Today the wort is produced off-site and delivered in tankers so that the brewing can be finished off in the Oudenaarde brewery. It only takes three staff to run the whole operation - an engineer, the brew master and a labourer with Hector and two other people running tours of the brewery.

At the conclusion of the tour we were invited to have another beer!! I passed, but Bernie tried the Golden Band beer which was now on offer ... and then I think he managed another brown beer?! Then, if you can believe it, we were all sent on our way back to the Elodie with cherry beer travellers. Well, not really travellers, but bottles of cherry beer in presentation containers. I don't know how the brewery makes any money with the amount of product it is giving away!??!

There was some talk of a walk around Oudenaarde after dinner, but the weather was uncooperative and we all spent a rainy evening aboard the Elodie!!

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