Saturday, October 17, 2015

Trail running in Gent, Belgium

Last Sunday I left 105F heat in Pasadena to hop on  plane to Belgium for a week of business.  It wasn't all business however;  the city of Gent has a network of rivers and canals with greenways threaded with cobblestone paths and dirt trails.  Getting up to run in the 40F rain before dawn was worth it, the runs were great:

Below is a map of the Gent Centrum area showing  one of the routes I took.  I stayed at the hotel Ibis Centrum on Nederkouter, just a half mile or so north of the St.Pieters train station and conveniently accessed from there by tram (electric street car).  From there is was easy to link into the river/canal trail system. The best trail was down the Leie towards the Blaarmeersen lake and Watersportbaan (rowing lake).   I also took a route towards the east of the hotel which ran through the old city center. This route was fine but I got turned around coming back through the city lanes.  Next time I will bring my GPS as the return-to-start function would provide quite useful in the twisty city lanes!