Hey hey so I have just received a surprise trip to Belgium on November 11th and 12th. So I've extended my trip to the 20th and I'm heading down to the Paris Supercross.
Unfortunately an accessible ticket was only available on the Sunday but i'm still super excited. If only I had an inside line to anyone in the industry to get into the Saturday night... wink wink to anyone here...
I have a week to travel between Namur and Paris or could travel direct Paris. Does anyone have any recommended must see or must do things around this region? Moto or non moto related? I've never been to Europe before.
Also are anyone on the forum heading down to the event?
If you like beer you should hang around some time in Belgium, the choice and quality is insane (best enjoyed with meat products like saucisson and cheese).
If that's your style, Blanche de Namur is quite good since you'll be there, but they really do make all kinds of beers, including some heavy hitters like triple karmeliet (triple fermentation, 8.4 °, great and rich flavor). Best is to ask the locals for their favorite bars or beer shopping place (stuff like Drinks is crazy where they have hundreds of beers for very reasonable prices).
If you don't like beer well... I'm sorry for you
Don't know much about Belgium so others might be more helpful but Brussels and Bruges are really nice towns to visit. Forget the Brussels sprouts and go for the moules-frites and gauffres. Bruges is also famous for chocolate. The Ardennes (small mountain range between France and Belgium) are a nice place to hike or even ride if you can rent a motorcycle (though Belgium roads are infamous for potholes and the weather might be sketchy).
In the northern part of France Lille is really a good place to hang out, not so different from the southern part of Belgium, then you can hop on a train to be in Paris in no time. Obviously accommodation in Paris is expensive but there you'll get lots of things to do depending on your taste (sight seeing, museums, food and drinks, Disneyland...). Just be aware that people in Paris do not have a reputation for their kindness, they get a bad rap from the rest of the country but motorcycle fans is a great community
Belgium and Netherlands are nice. I went to Bruges and Namur whilst I was in Belgium, really lovely places. Namur in particular is very picturesque. Beer was fantastic!
Paris I didn't find so great. Smells bad, people are grubby (alot of dog crap on the path, people tend to spit alot). Pickpockets and scammers at the popular spots. People don't tend to cater to non-French speakers as much. Just felt uncomfortable there overall. The only other major city I went to in Europe was Amsterdam, and didn't experience any of that.
Regional France might be a bit better, but overall I enjoyed Belgium and Netherlands alot more
Yeah the vibes from Paris compared to smaller towns in France or Belgium are definitely different and big cities are not as welcoming and come with their own pickpockets and stuff like that. But then in Paris you also have so many things to see so really depends what you're looking for.
Also keep in mind that the further north you go, the better people are at speaking English (not sure about this sentence lol). France is not great in this regard. Netherlands and northern countries are much better for this.
Depending how far you want to go Amsterdam is also great to see and great atmosphere. Obviously visiting London is a must but it depends on your time and travel budget (Eurostar from Paris or flight from pretty much everywhere). If you're willing to go a bit further (and likely sunnier), Spain (would recommend Barcelona) and Italy are mad about bikes. In Italy the food is terrific, plus I would totally go to the Ducati museum, you can even get a tour of Ducati factory nearby.
https://www.ducati.com/ww/en/borgo-panigale-experience
Going back to France if sports cars are your thing you may want to head to Le Mans and visit the 24h museum. There is also a section about motorcycles though I would not expect any dirtbikes obviously. Never been to the museum so can't vouch for it but it seems pretty cool if you're into cars: https://www.lemans-musee24h.com/en
I don’t know if the Citadel is open to the public
The Shop
so cool
Unfortunately it's been apparently closed since 2007 but you can still walk around it
https://www.namurmx.be/en/memory-space/
I am not a Paris specialist but with limited time these are the zones that I think are the best. The most inside one is the most famous part. I highly recommend to walk over that central or extended zone (pick any street but don't follow my line, it is just the zone), it is actually pretty small and it is the best way to discover Paris. I did it once, took a day and walked like 15/20 miles but it was worth it. To see Paris as a bird from the Eiffel Tower or the "Arche de la Défense" is nice. Avoid waiting near train stations (especially gare du nord at night), and especially as a foreigner (unless some good frenchies are with you) avoid Pigalle and these strip clubs for pickpockets or scams/very expensive bottles of champagne etc.
My family is from Liège in Belgium. You have to try some Belgian fries (Andrew McFarlane said in an interview that they were his favourite snack food R.I.P).
Thanks everybody.
I think im gonna try and do a Citadel tour in Namur - pending wheelchair accessibility - I have heard a lot of bad about Paris, thanks for all the feedback, I do wanna see the main sights but based on the feedback here, I might just do the weekend there. Brace the Saturday/Sunday morning crowds to check out the sights and head back to Brussels Monday morning to fly home.
I am seriously considering jumping on the train to the Nurburgring as I found a hand control car I could do a bunch of laps around the ring... A real bucket list thing... https://rsrnurburg.com/hand-controlled-cars/#:~:text=Drivers%20that%20r….
Trying to justify the pretty exorbitant price though...
I would stop for 2 days in Amsterdam. You dont need a guide, its not a very big city, you can rent a bicycle and explore. Its very fun and something you can enjoy without much preparation. What is not fun is the weather in Europe around this time of year, it can be extremely gray, wet and windy, just depressing in general. It's really nice here though, trust me bro
You will be in the vicinity of Omaha beach and the american cemetery, it is depressing but worth visiting to remember those men and what they did.
Whatever you decide to do, post some photos when you're home. Sounds like a fun trip.
Wow yeah Nurburgring sounds great for sure, talk about an iconic track. Spa Francorchamps won't be far from you either.
The citadel is not really wheelchair friendly, very steep slopes through woods. You could enjoy the esplanade with Roman Ampithetre, good bar by cable car with views over river and town below.
Whatever you do take plenty of pictures to share on here. Have a safe, fun trip!
We found Paris to be very friendly a few years ago. You def have to be aware of pick pockets and watch your back pack and stuff.
Normandy are was super cool. Mont St Michelle was also really cool. Neither is prob super easy for accessibility tho. Steep hills at Mont St Michell. Normandy has museums and the American cemetery which are accessible. The beaches and bunkers not so much.
So how is it going, got a nice plan for the week?
Hey hey.
I ended up spending 3 nights in Brugge, which was really lovely. The canals surrounding the central area were lovely and the Belgian Waffles waffled well. The cobblestones were not fantastic for a wheelchair but not too bad.
then I went down to Lille for 2 night. I cruised around exploring there yesterday, it was a cold day (month/season) so wasn’t too busy.
Just arrived in Paris now. Definitely feels more industrial than Brugge or Lille. Obviously bigger.
I couldn’t get a ticket for tonight. Still on the lookout if anyone on here has either a spare ticket, a booth I could pay to get in, or any sort of pass situation. I would love to get done and watch tonight.
Currently on Mobile and can’t work out how to upload more than one pic at a time. Here I am in Brugge with a broken film camera and cold hands
I think it's all sold out for today but you can still buy tickets for tomorrow (if that works for you)
https://www.supercrossparis.com/billetterie
I managed to snag a ‘standing disabled’ seat for Sunday. I can’t stand but it was all that was available
Pit Row
Curious, there are still tickets for cat 1, 2 and 3 for Sunday on the official site, though I have no idea about wheelchair access.
Anyway, glad you got tickets for tomorrow 👍
It was really difficult. I had to join a website call Yoolabox in order to get them and they wouldn’t accept my disability card, because in Australia they don’t really have one, so it took a few days of back and forth to get them and by the time I did Saturday was sold out. I think Yoolabox is a service buying disable tickets in France. I’m sure it’s good locally but was difficult from Australia to navigate.
The same sort of thing happened at Aus X where I had to pay 4x as much for the VIP pass because they had surge pricing after the pre sale and Ticketmaster wasn’t answering calls for days on end, and it’s required to call to get wheelchair tickets. So I had to pay the price gouged surge pricing.
It has been a bit of a crapshoot really.
But still so excited to see some big dogs going sick on a sick looking track
I said ‘the McGrath one is the best’ and French guys said ‘pewww now it’s Jett’
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