Month: April 2018

Date: 20180401

Time: 10:35 – 17:35

Distance: 27.7 km

Walkers: Gerben, Frank, Rob

Walk

We are walking the 2^nd part of our sequel to the Pieterpad, in the general direction of Santiago de Compostella.

Because public transport is a bit difficult today, it is Easter, we go to Neupré by car. We park the car in front of the bank, after driving through Neupré (we were far too early and wanted to see if we could have a drink somewhere when we were done walking).

We take bus 94 to train station Liège Guillemins. Our intention was to then take the train to Bressoux. However, the connection is very bad (almost an hour’s wait) and Frank suggests to look for a bus. This is possible, we take bus 138, only a 10 minutes wait.
We now have to walk a little more than 1 kilometer to the start of our walk, train station Bressoux.

When we reach station Bressoux, we continue to the city towards the Meuse. We follow the Meuse for quite some time. On the other side is the Liège market, but we are not going there today. At Église Collégiale Saint-Jacques the first route ends and a new route starts.

Unfortunately we don’t find anything to get a coffee, only one restaurant at a marina is open, but we do not get coffee there (all tables are reserved for the Easter brunch). The waiter gives us directions where we can get coffee, but this would mean walking back too far. We take the risk and still hope to find something.

We continue through Liège, walking along the Meuse, until we reach the mouth of the Ourthe. Now we follow the Ourthe for a bit. When we leave the Ourthe, we go in the direction of Angleur, a suburb of Liège. To our pleasant surprise we find an open pub here, La Drash. Here we take a drink (the time for coffee has passed), after almost 11 kilometers.

The break was just in time, when we walk out of Angleur (after one street), we immediately walk into nature and the forest. We do not really leave the countryside anymore until we reach the end of our walk.
We also immediately start climbing. It  will not be the last time today, but it is the biggest climb (about 200 meters, so not so bad after all).

We have been following the markings of the pilgrim path, the shell, for a while. At one point, however, we deviate from the pilgrim path, down a narrow path. We continue down until the bottom of this valley comes into view. A small stream flows through the valley. According to our GPS route, we have to cross that stream at some point. However, there is no bridge and even worse on the other side the path is still a lot higher and we have to climb through the bushes on a very steep slope to reach that path. We do not let this stop us and all three of us reach the path on the other side.
Unfortunately, the path is very bad, it is used by mountan bikers and there is a lot of water and mud. Fortunately, more people have apparently walked here, because there is some sort of alternative path on the side. Eventually we have to climb straight up across a field with dried plants to get back on the pilgrim path. If we had just walked on, we would also have come to this point …

We continue through the forest and we pass the University of Liège, which is located here on top of the hill.

After more forest we cross a highway and now we climb up a hill and follow the ridge via a rocky path. It is also quite slippery because of the mud, so we have to watch out. After a while, on the left we have a great view over the Ourthe valley.

When we leave the forest, the route is following paved roads. We walk into Neupré, but we are still far from our car. We eventually arrive there. Unfortunately there are, again, no opportunities to have a drink at the end of our walk, even in Neupré.

We are again a bit closer to Santiago de Compostella.

We walked the following routes:

• To the city of Saint-Jacques / Visé – Liège (from station Bressoux) (gpx)
• Between Ourthe and Meuse / Liège – Sint Séverin (until the N63 in Neupré) (gpx)

Weather

It was nice walking weather today, with a temperature of 8 ° C. It was mainly cloudy, but occasionally the sun came out. In Liège we had some drizzle and while we were climbing the steep slope, it rained and even hailed for a short while. We used our umbrella, but we would also have managed without it.

References

• De Weg van de Franken I, Ben Theunissen, ISBN 978-90-484-3026-0
• www.dewegvandefranken.nl
• www.gpsies.com/mapUser.do?username=Pelgrimswegen
• www.gpsies.com/mapFolder.do?id=2131

Date: 20180216

Time: 09:05 – 17:35

Distance: 35,3 km

Walkers: Gerben, Frank, Rob

Walk

Now that we have completed the Pieterpad, we have decided to go to Santiago de Compostella. We’ll see how far we get …

The first route we are going to walk is from Maastricht to Reims.
Our walk starts with a double route (because each of the routes is a bit short), from Maastricht via Visé to Liège. Because that is quite a distance, we can stop in Bressoux, which saves us about 4 kilometers and 1-2 kilometers to the station in Liège. We’ll see how things work out.

Because we have a big walk ahead, we leave on time. We take the train to Maastricht at 8:08 in Tegelen. The train journey is going well (that is not always the case here in The Netherlands).

Just after 9:00 we start our walk that begins near the train station along the Meuse. We will continue to follow the Meuse largely today. First in Maastricht and then outside of Maastricht through parks and fields.
Then we walk towards Visé. This is not the best part, we walk partly through industrial sites and along rather boring parts through fields. We do pass Eijsden, where it is better. At a given moment we walk along the motorway.

In Visé we cross the motorway and we take a short break to have a drink. In restaurant L’autobus we are only welcome when we dine extensively. That was not our intention, but luckily we are shown the way to a pub (although we also would have found that ourselves). At D’Artagnan we have a Tripel Karmeliet and Jus d’orange for Gerben.

We suspect that the rest of the trip may be disappointing because we will be walking though Liège and this is rather industrial and dirty. However, we are pleasantly surprised when we instead walk over the hills a short distance from the Meuse, in the middle of nature, through forests and later through fields. A very nice environment.

Unfortunately, Gerben has pain in his foot. Although he indicated in Visé that it was alright, it does not go so well at times. He tries if a walking stick helps and sometimes it does. He does not complain, just keeps walking and keeps a good mood. However, our pace is now considerably lower. We therefore decide not to go further than Bressoux. That is far enough and it is also late enough.

In Jupille-sur-Meuse we enter Liège and then we walk through the urban area (not the most beautiful part of the route) to Bressoux. Unfortunately, there is no pub or anything like that. So we have to wait until tonight for a well-deserved beer on the couch.
We are looking for the train station and that proves to be difficult. Then, however, from a bridge we spot a small platform in the middle of a lot of railway lines. There is even a working machine to get tickets and we are lucky, the train runs every hour and we only have to wait less than fifteen minutes.

We have a smooth journey back home, with coffee and Cola from the Kiosk in Maastricht.

The route was not really marked, we mainly walked on the GPS and on the maps that I printed. We did see various markings with the shell (pilgrim path), but these would not have been enough to follow the route.
All in all a nice start of our pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella.

We walked the following routes:

• On trodden paths / Maastricht – Visé (gpx)
• To the city of Saint-Jacques / Visé – Liège (until station Bressoux) (gpx)

Weather

Today we had perfect walking weather, sunny, dry and about 8°C. It was however quite muddy and soggy. On several occasions we had to find our way along large puddles of water or large mud pools.

References

• De Weg van de Franken I, Ben Theunissen, ISBN 978-90-484-3026-0
• www.dewegvandefranken.nl
• www.gpsies.com/mapUser.do?username=Pelgrimswegen
• www.gpsies.com/mapFolder.do?id=2131