The Beacon Message Board

Anyone got any good campsite or cheap accommodation recommendations to looking to do a tour of Flanders or Paris Roubaix trip? Will have a car and two bikes.
Somewhere West Flanders around Oudenaarde, Kortrijk etc although any others near Ypres, Roubaix, Ghent may be useful too.

Thanks

Nick Shenton and I have stayed here when we did flanders...it's just outside Oudenaarde.

http://www.vakantiehuismeerse.be/en_studios.php

It's pretty nice and not expensive, plus the owners make a wicked local brew beer...

Thanks, really helpful, looks ideal.

Like the description: 'at the foot of the Koppenberg and the Patersberg'

No particular recommendations Tim, but do make sure you take the kids to see some art whilst you are there. Both Gent (not Ghent its Flanders not France) and Brugge are absolutely fabulous places and the real cradles of European art whatever Florence may claim. Brugge is also a great example of a city where people on foot and bikes are put first. Gent is good on a bike although the tram lines everywhere can be a bit tricky ......

It's Gand in French, Pete. I would avoid camping at all costs at that time of year in Belgium.

Where does that H come from then Laurence? Is it another pretentious English addition like the spelling of the Isle of Rum as Rhum or calling Snowden" Mount" Snowden or worst of all the Tour"de" Yorkshire?

Not sure - maybe it's an attempt to mimic the local pronunciation, although that would probably require removal of the G. The real mystery is why we call Brugge Bruges, but Zeebrugge stays as Zeebrugge and not, as my Belgian ex once presumed we do, Sea Bruges.

I had always assumed it was the tradition that goes all the way back to the Normans of frenchifing things to sound posh. Dutch is just about the least frenchified of all European languages and makes everything sound delightfully"working class".I have listened in raptures to descriptions of the Gent alter piece in Dutch, where one of the most beautiful objects ever created sounds like a tuberculosis victim about to receive the last rights . I am sure it's down to this language that posh people prefer Florence to Brugge and nothing to do with the weather, food or wine

the last rights ................last rites surely. ( At my age one gets rather pedantic about such things)

I can recommend a camp site at Baale Nassau.

I clearly remember staying there, well fairly clearly due to the large quantity of genever consumed. It was in 1969.