Hi! Sorry, it’s been a while but here we are.
It’s been so long since I’ve written a post about a getaway, I’ve almost forgotten how it goes. So while I’m finding my feet have a look at this post from last year when we went camping in Ostbelgien! We had a great time. So much so that we decided to return this year in May.
We even managed to set up our tent on the exact same spot at Camping Wesertal! Why change a winning team? Unfortunately the weather wasn’t like last summer and the tarpaulin we brought came in very handy. In any case we were well prepared for the weather and brought plenty of spare clothes.
All that rain did mean the woods looked extra green, almost fluorescent! The High Fens area is gorgeous anyway, but a nice extra splash of green doesn’t hurt anyone. We embarked on what is called a ‘Pleasure Tour’ of 19,7km. Somehow ‘pleasure’ and ’20km’ don’t really match in my head but we gave it a go!
As you can see from these and the following pictures the weather was typically Belgian: at least 3 seasons in a day. I guess we had about 1 hour of sunshine overall during the day, and yet I still managed to get a sunburn … Wear sun cream people!
The walk started off following the little river pictured above, but slowly started to move away, accompanied by some decent ascents and -luckily- some descents.
We saw a variety of scenery and landscapes and encountered very few other walkers, so definitely give it a try if you like long walks in relative solitude.
The High Fens are known for their moor landscapes, so we couldn’t miss out on that! Last year we did one of the more know walks close to the highest point of Belgium, this year we walked through the lesser known Brack Fen. The grey, windy and rainy weather did make it feel a bit desolate sometiles, as if we were at the end of the world.
One remark if you do this walk: we missed point 39 on the route and took a wrong turn there. This was unfortunate as we were so close to the end at this point and pretty exhausted. After a while we turned back to the original route, wandered downhill and luckily found the next point not long after. A hot drink at Restaurant Ternell afterwards was very welcome and we were glad to have an early night at the campsite.
Instead of packing up and going home straight away the next day we decided to make a stop somewhere on the way home. We turned that ‘somewhere’ into the Castle of Franchimont and had it pretty much to ourselves!
Part of it was being restored during our visit but we could still walk around and also have a lovely view from some of the higher parts.
Another lovely visit to a beautiful corner of Belgium! Have you been?
Check out my other posts about places to visit in Belgium:
- Dinant
- Ostbelgien
- Leuven
- Brussels – and the food & drinks edition!
- Liège
- Antwerp
- Ghent
- Bouillon
Annelies Explores 
Wow, this looks like such a lovely spot! Thanks for sharing.
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