Chasing the Tour de France... Into Belgium by staying in Germany

In my planning for visiting the Le Tour I realised I should just add in an extra day following the tour. Not because I needed to, but because when the heck was I going to be in Europe again at the same time. This was after all a bucket list item I'd be completing. So after much back and forth on how to end my European leg of my holiday I settled on a plan of taking a train ride down to Aachen on the German border for the night, and then catching a train to Verviers for the start of day 3.

In researching this option I had read that staying in villages or towns where the tours starts or stops for a night was often expensive, and accommodation hard to find. Aachen I found was the perfect solution. It was only an hour from Dusseldorf. And the next day the Dbahn / Belgian Rail trip cost all of 7 euro each way, a half hour of my time, and it had multiple budget hotels located close to the railway station for my ease of transit. So it fit my brief all round. I could leave my bags at the hotel for the day, catch a train to and from Verviers, pick the bag up, and then continue onto a destination away from the circus of the tour. So the plan just seemed to work.

My arrival into Aachen was quite uneventful but very successful. Being summer I have to remember the sunset time isn't like Australia. In Europe you'll often have sunlight until 9pm nearly. So even with a 6pm departure from Dusseldorf I was there, checked in, and wandering the streets in daylight.

Interestingly Aachen had been lucky enough to host Le tour during that day. You see when the Tour path is set they really only provide details of the exact path about 2 months before. So when I had booked my holiday and stay in Aachen it had been on the basis that Day 2 the tour would leave Dusseldorf and by some miracle ride into Liege about another half hour away by train with no list of towns in between. So in reality I had booked early enough to not get Le Tour prices after it became confirmed on the path of the race. I'm not sure how much of Aachen got to see Le Tour, or where it exactly went, but the statue outside of the main church definitely confirmed their visit.

Being a town along the path it was busy, but not crazy busy. So by 8pm people were back to normal. Obviously many of the dedicated would have continued onto the next intermediate stop having seen the tour speed by in 5 minutes. I suspect many actually stayed the night before as opposed to my staying after. Or just perhaps there weren't as many actually actively following the race as I had seen in Dusseldorf. It was also Sunday too. So back to work Monday would have been a factor.

Aachen itself is quite the important destination for history. Being the preferred home of Charlemagne. I was also told by friends it's also quite the venue for Christmas markets. Thankfully though it wasn't winter, this was Le Tour season.