Monsieur Iou's Tour of Belgium

New edition enriched with six unpublished plates “I was born in Charleroi and grew up in Brussels. But when I reached my thirties, I realized that the Berghain in Berlin, the Ramblas in Barcelona, the authentic real absinthe bar in Prague or the too cheap all inclusive in Bodrum are ultimately more familiar to me than the Buda in Kortrijk, the Carnival of Aalst, the Eau d'Heure lakes or the slag heaps of Genk. Suffice to say that my notions of Belgian geography oscillate between the scoreboard of the Jupiler League and the screen of my GPS during this or that road galley. I can't help it: for the past few years, not an evening has gone by without someone talking to me about a sûûûper documentary by Arte +7 on one or another exotic destination, and the fact that he low-cost plane ticket is only worth a quarter of the price of a subscription to Brussels public transport does not encourage me to raise my eyes to my surroundings. In short, despite the small size of my country, I still have a lot to discover. This is why I undertook to cycle around Belgium: to fill this unforgivable gap. On the other hand, my professional obligations led me to abandon the option of a long itinerant journey, in favor of a distribution of the stages over a year, by riding every two or three weekends. No patriotic apology for Belgium here (the Red Devils are there for that), it is rather an alternative invitation to travel. By stages. With the taste of slowness and awakening. The bike lends itself perfectly to this: it allows you to look up from your handlebars and, with a little luck, to get lost in pretty places. » Mr Iou Welcome to the Belgium of Monsieur Iou! Lifted, subtle and often funny, a story at bike height – that is to say at human height, exactly.