Safe Return Doubtful

From the hiking car park I was based at on Monday night there was a sign indicating that it was a 45 minute walk to a beer museum. I looked it up on the map and put together a circuit through various forests trails to make it a ten kilometre round trip, with the beer museum at its extremity.

The forest and its trails, on a wet and humid morning, were rewarding, much less so the beer museum. Basically it was a bar and restaurant with a wide choice of beer, like most in Belgium. To add the tag ‘museum’ to its signage it had a collection of beer bottles around the walls; considerably underwhelming, and actually the second time I have encountered such marketing on my Belgian visits. I visited, very quickly in and out, at just after 11 in the morning, raising a glance from the early morning drinkers, too early for me. 

On the return to the van I met an older couple on vacation from Antwerp for the week, and out collecting mushrooms. They told me it had been too wet in recent days for many mushrooms to grow, the opposite of where I have just come from, the hills around the Czech – German border, where it has been too dry. They had asked to be introduced to Roja, and duly made a fuss of him. They showed me photographs of the two German Shepherds they had had, losing both of him through cancer early in their lives, at 6 and 4 years old. Those times, they told me, were too traumatic for the, to consider another dog. I think that’s sad, and gently  encouraged them to reconsider; with a considerate owner who can time with the dog, the animal has a great life, even if it is unfortunately short. There are only so many dogs we can have in our lives, so when lifestyle affords us the opportunity, we should grab it. 

Wallonia, the region of Belgium I am in, has a network of more than 1500 kilometres of trails for hikers, cyclists and horse riders, called the RAVeL. This pairs well with the map of micro-breweries in the region that the tourist board produces.

I moved to a part of it that is a disused railway line about twenty kilometres away, close to the town of Oudler. The rail line now makes up one of the longest cycle paths in Europe, the Vennbahn, which runs for the 125 kilometres between Aachen in Germany and Troisvierges in Luxembourg, though mainly in Belgium. Heres the website.

There’s a good place for the van for the night, up above and away from town at the old railway station, and plenty of options on the trails, one of which we took just before it went dark. 

This is the municipality of Burg-Reuland, in the province of Liège. Known these days as the Eastern Cantons, the residents are generally German speaking, the area was annexed to Belgium after the First World War. Many Luxembourgers live rurally here also, though work in the more urban areas across the border. Wednesday was a fine day, and much warmer than it has been of late, as is most of Northern Europe currently. It was ideal conditions for a hiking circuit of the area, gentle rolling hills, dairy farming and more Ardennes forest. 

In the early afternoon we drove on, just for half an hour, quickly across the border to Luxembourg for some cheap fuel, and then we paid a quick visit to the Lupulus brewery in Courtil, which has a restaurant and a brewery shop.

My initial plan was to find a place to stopover for the night here, but the village is between the La Salm river and a railway, and as it has been so wet recently, any potential place to put the van was muddy and under water. I made a couple of purchases and moved on another half hour or so up the La Salm valley to a hiking car park for the trails around the Leroux Tower, high up on the valley side above the town of Trois-Ponts, which we walked to in the late afternoon sunshine. This is the Parc naturel des deux Ourthes.