From Belgium to France

For more photos of talented Astrid
Deresch click here.

In the house of Astrid and Jürgen.

After a two weeks break in Belgium with our friends and helpers in need, Astrid, Jürgen and Jamie, we went on on our journey on the 14th of June. We decided to make a little jump after the long days of toothache and non-walking and Astrid drove us to the impressive main station of Liège so we could take the train to the Belgian coastline, to the last city before the French border called De Panne.

Liège's main station: lots of light under arty constructions.

The Belgian train service must be mentioned as very friendly and with fair prices. During our research we were astonished about the many lovely offers we used to have in Germany with the DB as well two decades ago: for example on the weekends you pay only half the price no matter which train and destination you take. For the well known Graspop festival of Belgium they also have special offers and of course in general for the elderly, students etc. If only public transport always would be as customer friendly.

From the station of De Panne to the beach it was still quite a long march and we used our App of choice komoot again for navigation. This led to our first path where we had to struggle hard with our carrying system, the Swiss Carrix, our friend and donkey supplement. Beautiful as they were, the paths through the wild dune and sand landscapes were a torture for both our muscles and the wheel of the Carrix. I had to give up after less than two kilometers and Jonathan took over for the last three or four. After this experience we avoided sand beaches and changed komoot to bike routes rather than hiking trails, which fortunately worked fine and eventually we reached Bray-Dunes, where we would spend our first French night in front of a camping place on a little geeen spot.

Tough experience: carrix hikes on sandy
ground should be avoided.

Taking a break after finally reaching the beach.