Diest to Maastricht

Davy Leers gave us a ride to Diest and we found another GR trail at the train station. We headed out looking for the junction with the GR 5 and knew we had to cross the river and followed clear trail marks across a bridge. We were happy enough to stop at a huge public swimming area and have a beer before continuing. The swimming park had the obligatory beer garden, three or four different pools and beaches, kids playgrounds and Belgians streaming in on the beginning of a hot day. We followed the markers out of town and things seemed ok until we started to climb a hill and I remembered we should have crossed a RR track. Well, we got to the top of the 60 m hill and I got oriented with the sun and, oops we had missed the trail junction and were heading backwards. After about 2.5 hours we found the junction and decided that it being 3 in the afternoon we couldn't make Lummen, so we took the bus.

We were glad that we got to Lummen because we had a nice dinner in the town square and met a Dutch couple who were day hiking on the Gr 5 that day and had had the same trouble with the trail junction we did. Like most people they are doing the GR 5 in weekends and week vacation chunks. They are planning to spend some in the Jura this summer so we exchanged email addresses. While eating we noticed that a lot of people were walking through the square and heading up a street. So we followed them and found a Catholic Worker Club social event. We joined in and had fun watching the people, the magician, the mime and the live music. We even had a long talk with the parish priest. On the way home the parking lot at the community hall was full and there were people standing at the entry with cowboy hats. We went in and found everyone in western attire line dancing to a country band. Quite an evening.

The next day we got up and hiked to Bokrijk. The trail winds much more today than the old route so we cheated and followed the old route without any trouble. It is nice to have land marks like the Albert Canal to follow. It started hot, about 25 degrees by noon, but then it clouded up and we walked in rain for an hour or so. The trail goes through beautiful nature preserves after leaving the Canal. We stopped in the nature Domein Kiewit for a rest and some frites and watched the kids playing in the playground next to the musem and the beer garden. When we left for the last 5 km it was getting dark and then a thunder storm blew up and drenched us before we had a chance to put on our rain gear. We walked the last 3 km in the rain and took a quick look at the historical architectural displays of Belgian house designs through the centuriesat the Bokrijk park. We were very happy we had made a reservation at a hotel and that it was right on the trail and had a manager that was nice enough to dry our clothes for us.

On the way to Zutendaal we stopped at an old mill, which has been turned into a tavern. the mill has been used for fulling clothe as well as grinding corn and crushing rape seed for oil. It's a beautiful building and will be used to grind flower again later this summer. Cristel a woman eating lunch at the tavern recommended food and took our photo and then asked us to her home and her husband Marc's machine shop. We toured the machine shop, which makes prototypes and hardware for dental implants and had a coffee in Cristel's kitchen. She gave us a ride back to the trail and we hiked on in to Zutendaal.

The trip to Maastricht was a bit rainy, but once again we were in beautiful countryside. We took a break at a fishing club on the way, which was interesting and ate lunch at a large camp ground resort a km off the trail.

Maastricht is a really impressive city. It has only 120,000 people, but the style of the town makes it seem much bigger. It has many wonderful buildings and shops. We spent the day touring the town and doing some shopping. We are staying at a hotel run by a family that is letting us use the computer at the front desk.

The city is draped in Holland Orange and is about to go crazy like the rest of Europe for the World Cup.




GR 5 way mark front breakfast room of hotel in Bokrijk.


Lake on the way to Zutendaal.

A real European buck and doe.

Sculpture in the middle of nowhere.

The mill tavern with gearing behind the old folks.

A very typical childrens playground at a beer garden.

Bridge over the Maas at Maastricht

Maastricht from the window of our hotel room.

Real Maastricht style.