De bende van Wim

- Season 1

(2002)

Actor Wim Opbrouck gathers a trio of Flelish minor celebrities, including nearly as chubby press photographer and musician jean Blaute. After an attempt to be poetic in Ostend port, they set out on an unplanned 'European tour widely around Belgium' on motorbikes, a common boy's dream. They start following the Belgian North Sea coast, then cross the French border continuing in old Flanders, enjoying the simply countryside pleasures. they visits the abandoned coal mine, guided by former miners who were extras when Gerlinal was shot there. Final the legendary stone roads...

The trio rides on along the Somme Great war front, yet basically just appreciates it, like most French locals, as Route Sacrée often passed by the Tour de France cycling race, fraternizing with 'motards' (sports reporters on motorbikes) until Verdun. Next stop is Domrémy, the peasant birthplace of Joan of D'Arc. After discussing theories that she was in fact an illegitimate half-blood French royal, they fake piety to toy with the local basilica's abbé (French for either abbot or Catholic priest in general).

The trio drives to the Burgundy , first unable to resist the joys of Bourgogne wine and discussing the prestigious sector's glory and perils. Mochiel is on pilgrimage here to the home, on a modest wine estate, of photography pioneer Nicéphore Niepce, whose descendants they meet there.

The trio tastes Alpine motorbiking in Switzerland. First they visit the country's unique motorbike army division, which invites them to join a recruits training. Enjoying famous slopes, they meet a local who arranges for skiing enthusiast Wim to try the new type with a mate of his, a fine instructor. Relaxing in mountain meadows, only Wim dares a swim, the trio meets an old bachelor local whose passion is his well-kept motorbike.

Crossing the Bodensee by ferry, the trio enters southwestern Germany in Baden Würtemberg. Aboard they met an employee of the surviving, modernized zeppelin museum and factory. Next the Hohner firm which produces traditional mouth organs, Blaute's thing. Then the family farm where Michiel, traveling to Greece as a youth, wrote a book and borrowed a tractor, still in working order, for the rest of that long journey.

The trio returns close to home, at Schengen, where Belgium's tiny neighbor Luxemburg, the host, meets Germany and France. Three burgomasters/mayors testify how akin the neighbors are in culinary and other matters, and how much the EU open borders group treaty signed there did to eliminate border troubles and smuggling. Then into Germany's 'forgotten treasure', the quiet Eifel region.

The trio leaves Germany over the Dutch border. O the way to Holland, they meet and admire a bikers unit of the 'maréchaussée' (national police). They also help out a punk motor-biker, who turns out to be a member of a gay club and introduces them to their Rotterdam club house. It is fully equipped for parties, sex games and fetishes, even BDSM, which are discussed and demonstrated. Blaute can't resist visiting the music-shop where John Lennon, still unknown, once pinched a mouth organ.

The trio makes a pilgrimage in honor of Blaute's rock heroes: the Beatles. That means a trip to their native port city, Liverpool. They meet a scooter club and visit various places which inspired the first mega pop band's greatest hits.

The trio's next biking routes are in Britain, starting on the Welsh coast. They're on pilgrimages to bucolic there places which inspired hard rock band Led Zeppelin's softer repertoire and Welsh irreverent poet Dylan Thomas. They also meet an eccentric veterinarian.

In this season finale, the trio completes its tour, despite Jean's motorbike being stolen, in southern England. First to the village where anonymously retired Lawrence of Arabia died in a motorbike accident. Next the Neolithic megaliths ring at Avesbury, bigger but much rougher the Stonehenge and barely preserved. The Stratford on Avon and Oxford, on the trail of the bard. Finally on the ship from Dover to family reunions in Ostend and first Michiel's 'gay outing'.

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