Another wet start today, and cold. “Luckily” the road climbed right from the beginning, so I managed to warm up pretty quickly. After re-entering Belgium I followed N40, which climbs up and down through les Ardennes. It looks like a favourite road for motorbikes but, given the weather, it was quite empty. The views are typical Belgian countryside.
The road is full of cemeteries from the First World War and it also reaches the “Ligne Maginot” close to Givet.
These wars happened less than 100 years ago (search online for ligne Maginot or battle of Verdun, http://verdun2016.org, just to name two) and the European Union has been created to avoid that similar tragedies could repeat. No, the EU was not created by finance, and the EU is not made of “unelected bureaucrats”. You can read about the EU here: http://europa.eu/about-eu/eu-history/ and o the same web site you can find out about the political organisation of the EU. If you prefer, as my friend Pietro suggested, you could go back to basics and read the Manifest of Ventotene, which I quote: “A free and united Europe is the necessary premise to the strengthening of modern civilization”.
If you are still interested in the route, this is the trace for today: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1241055676