Date: 20180401
Time: 10:35 – 17:35
Distance: 27.7 km
Walkers: Gerben, Frank, Rob
Walk
We are walking the 2nd 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