Into Overpelt to a little bakery open on Sunday morning with a dozen locals queueing for bread and pastries, rijstaart making the perfect cycling breakfast food.

Onward eastwards, briefly over the border into the white village of Thorn, then turning south into the centre of Maaseik - bric-a-brac stalls busy on the middle day of their Whitsun market. Continuing near the Maas/Meuse river and parallel Zuid-Willemsvaart canal. On near to Maastricht then up the first climb in four days: 50 metres and 16%, and the start of more rolling countryside, through cobbled Tongeren to Heers.