Quel le Difference!

We heard that things would change when we left Maastricht and headed south, but we had no idea until we hiked the trail from Kanne - Visé - Saive, where we are doing a much needed two days of off the itinerary R&R.

First the language changes from Flemish to French, not gradually, but all at once. And the number of English speakers drops dramatically. The rest of the trip will be in French, without the help of all the northern European English speakers. Somehow we are managing French better than flemish and find the French speaking Belgians happy to help us out. We do have a phrase book and are teaching ourselves French. We have had help from the wonderful Madam Aline, who made us coffee and served the rice pudding pie from the local bakery to us as she helped us with our French.

Second the terrain has changed from the flat land along the North Sea to hills and vistas of villages tucked into river valleys. We also walk through wheat and sugar beet fields, a change from the dairy farming to the north. It is beautiful country to walk in, even though it is sometimes wet. The trail is well marled but still gives trouble going ijnto and out of towns.

Third we are seeing more hikers. We passed and were passed throughout a day by two Dutch couples who are out doing day hikes. We also ran into a French man on a week trip. And a local hiker gave us a hand with the trail signs. Still no hikers on the tril for the summer.

We are changing our itinerary as needed to get rest and see things. We have taken the last two days to rest. We are also skipping some of the trail going in and out of cities, like Maastricht. I guess this puts us in with the non serious GR 5 walkers, but the Wilson´s just want to have fun.

We are heading out again tomorrow and hope to find a fast computer so we can put up some more photos.