A weekend away enjoying nature in Belgian Limburg

When I still lived with my parents, Sunday night was television night and the evening would always start with “Vlaanderen Vakantieland” (“Flanders Vacationland”), a series dedicated to everything Flanders – the northern part of Belgium – has to offer in terms of sights and activities. Each episode focused on a specific region, with the host spending a night at a B&B there.

“Vlaanderen Vakantieland” isn’t on television anymore, but the accommodations featured in the program can still be found on the website “Logeren in Vlaanderen Vakantieland” (“Spending the night in Flanders Vacationland”) where people can find B&B’s and guest houses with a personal touch around Flanders.

The idea here is that wherever you spend the night should be an essential part of your trip and not just a place to rest your head.

Knowing how much I love to explore my home country, Logeren in Vlaanderen Vakantieland asked me whether I wanted to try out one of the B&B’s they have on their website and explore the region while I was there. Of course, I wanted to do that! And that’s how I ended up deep in the province of Limburg, near the Dutch border last week.
 

B&B De Keyartmolen

My trip started with my arrival at B&B De Keyartmolen in Tongerlo, a borough of Bree. Owners Wim and Sonja offered me a drink before showing me to my room, a beautiful duplex with a separate bathroom and toilet on the ground floor and the bed on the first floor.

Add to that a little lounge area and a table to work on and it’s fair to say that this room was more like a small apartment. I quickly threw down my stuff and took some photos before starting my activities of the day.

When I came to De Keyartmolen in the late afternoon, I noticed it was still rather chilly in my room. Sonja told me that that particular room hadn’t been slept in the night before and as it was located on the corner of the building, it needed some time to warm up.

Knowing that I’m cold a lot quicker than the average person, I left it at that and headed out again.

When I came back in the evening, though, I noticed that Sonja had moved all of my stuff to another room where it was much warmer already. “That’s so nice!”, I thought, and I felt a bit ashamed that she’d had to go around the room to gather my things. I would’ve happily moved them myself, but thought it was super nice how they’d arranged everything to make my stay as pleasant as possible.

My second room was as great as the first one, if not better. It had a large lounge area with a comfortable couch, a television, a small table to put your drinks on or play cards at (the cards game was waiting for guests on the table) and a bigger table where I’d work for the rest of the evening.

Separated from the lounge area with a low wall was the bed, and behind that, behind a see-through curtain, was the big (and I do mean big) bathroom with jacuzzi and shower.

Needless to say, I didn’t mind staying in that evening.

The next morning, I started my day off right with the delicious breakfast buffet served at De Keyartmolen. I’d filled a bowl with yogurt, fresh fruit, and muesli when Wim asked if I would like an egg, and so I added a soft boiled egg to my morning meal. Having finished that, a wonderful glass of fresh orange juice and – of course – a cup of tea, I was ready for my second day of exploring.

 

 

Cycling the Dune Belt

The first activity I had planned after arriving at De Keyartmolen was a cycling tour through the “Duinengordel” or “Dune Belt”, a 3,000 ha big nature area. It’s called that way because – indeed – the area has a lot of natural dunes, although those aren’t always clearly visible.

There are 25 km of cycling routes, but also 82 km of walking routes, 42 km of routes for horseback riders and two mountain bike trails of in total 45 km.

We cycled along the “Geuzenroute” for about two hours. I say “we” because someone from Duinengordel joined me to show me the way and tell me a bit about the region and the things we cycled past.

I’d been a little weary of starting this tour because the sky was gray and they’d predicted rain, but we got so lucky and only had to deal with a few drops during the first part of the ride.

Honestly, it felt so good being out there on that bike, breathing fresh air and cycling through fields and forest. The province of Limburg is still so much greener and more open than that of Flemish Brabant, where I live. There were horses, cows and sheep everywhere. We stopped at a pond, tackled some tiny hills and followed forest paths without seeing another soul, although we could hear birds chirping high over our heads.

It made me feel so zen and I realized that it’s moments like these that made me fall in love with travel and with exploring Belgium.
 

 

Trying a local dish

I always like to try a local food wherever I travel and in Bree, the thing to try seemed to be a buckwheat pancake with bacon and syrup. As my chocolate workshop started at 6.30 p.m., I felt like a salty pancake would be the perfect early dinner.

I’d spotted it on the menu of the Brouwershof, the bistro I also had lunch at, and so I grabbed a seat there for the second time that day and ordered the local specialty.

It was better than I’d hoped. Granted, it doesn’t look that tempting, but believe me, it was Bruce Almighty kind of guuuuuud. You really do need to smear the syrup on top, though. That’s what makes it delicious. I did think it was funny that it was syrup from Liège, a Belgian local specialty from across the language border.
 

 

Making chocolate accesories

After the buckwheat pancake, it was time for some chocolate. Don’t worry, I didn’t down a whole box of pralines right after the bacon and syrup combination. Instead, I went to see hobby chocolatier Stijn Vanwetswinkel who runs a chocolate workshop and store from his house.

Aaaaaah, that smell upon opening the door… It was melted chocolate, ready to be tamed and poured into shapes for me to take home afterward.

I couldn’t wait to get started, but first a funny side story.

Between checking in at B&B De Keyartmolen in the morning and doing the cycling tour in the afternoon, I had lunch at bistro Brouwershof in Tongerlo (Bree) as I mentioned before. While I was enjoying my salad there, I suddenly heard a man talking to a lady and sitting two tables from me say: “Sofie from Wonderful Wanderings”. So I looked at him and said: “That’s me!”. It was Stijn who was having lunch with his girlfriend at the exact same place where I chose to have lunch. What are the odds!

Stijn organizes chocolate workshops on demand for groups of friends, families or hobby clubs. I was lucky enough to have him (and the chocolate!) all to myself and so I really got a chance to ask him all about how he got started and why we were handling the chocolate as we were.

Each time, we filled a shape with chocolate, let it shake on a special shaking device (really) to shake out the air bubbles (lots of shaking going on, you know I like shaking) and then we let the chocolate drip out again. This created the first layer and after the first layer was done, we repeated that process another one or two times before we were done (in the case of hollow shapes) or could fill them up with delicious stuff such as mocha cream or nuts. Yum!

Another layer was added to the pralines to cover them up and when all the layering was done (so much deliciousness) everything went into the fridge.

Now, you might have heard that you can’t put chocolate in the fridge and that’s true, expect when you’re creating shapes because cooling the chocolate down speeds up the hardening process by which the chocolate stops sticking to the mold and can be taken out of it without damaging it.

Why you can’t put chocolate in the fridge after that? Because it creates a whitish kind of layer that isn’t pretty and because it changes the flavor a bit. And we wouldn’t want that to happen, now would we?

 

 

A horse carriage ride through the woods and fields of Bocholt

On the second day of my stay, I had a ride planned with an open horse carriage only… it was raining. But I wouldn’t let that stop me, now would I? I greeted Etienne and his wife, both retired horse carriage lovers who take tourists around as a hobby, and off we went.

It was only lightly drizzling when we took off, but further into our ride, it really started to pour and I was beyond happy that there were extra blankets and even an extra long rain coat in the carriage that I could crawl under.

It was such a shame, really, because the ride itself was super cool and I learned a lot about the area along the way. We went over small paths in the woods, drove through puddles and open fields, saw a deer and a bird of prey…

I can only imagine this must be amazing to do in summer when the sun is out. It definitely beats riding a horse! While I’m still happy I went, I do have to admit that after an hour in the rain I was frozen and happy I could go warm up inside for a while.
 

 

Hanging with alpacas

The warming up happened inside the cafeteria of the Alpaca Farm in Kaulille, where I gladly accepted a cup of tea and a slice of delicious apple pie. As I filled up on warmth and energy, farm owner John told me how he’d started the farm 15 years ago as a place to breed alpacas, but is now focusing more on the tourism side of things as well.

The farm opens on Wednesday afternoons and on the weekend when people can come and visit the alpacas. Parents can sit on the terrace with a drink while their children play on the playground, or they can try some of the folkloristic games John gathered for his visitors.

But the highlight are the 70 alpacas and John’s love for the animals. I learned so much from him during my time at the farm as he told me about the breeding process, the hierarchy between the alpaca males, why the little ones need to be separated from their moms after a while and why it is that all alpacas give birth around 10 a.m. in the morning.

I’m not going to share all I learned because I really feel like you should hear it from him while watching the animals. They can have such goofy faces, especially when they’re eating.

 

 

Getting surprised at a garden full of sculptures

My last stop was at the Sculpture Garden right next to the alpaca farm. This garden was created by the artist Albert Vaesen and is quite amazing. I thought it would just be a garden with some statues inside, but Albert designed it in such a way that you have to follow a swirling path that brings you a surprise around every corner.

There are copper sculptures everywhere and I’m sure that if you were to visit the garden five times, you’d discover a new piece on every visit.

Creating these sculptures is Albert’s hobby and so he only makes what he enjoys making. No series of 20 identical pieces, only unique works of art. He does sometimes create things on demand, but even then all his works are one-offs.

While you can see some abstract pieces in the garden, most of Albert’s sculptures reference historical or recent events, mythology or are simply fun. Having fun while creating is definitely key for Albert and that shows when you’re walking through the garden. Some works are put behind frames as if they’re paintings, others you can only see when peeping around a corner.

The artist also regularly invites other artists to show their works in his garden, but even when there’s no guest exhibition going on (there wasn’t when I was there), I highly recommend you go have a look.

You can access the garden from the parking lot of the alpaca farm and when Albert’s there, he’ll gladly guide you around and tell you the story behind each piece. His passion for his work in inspiring, just as John’s passion for his animals is.

 

When I left the garden, my stomach was howling for attention as it was long past lunch time already and so I drove back to the center of Bocholt where I took a seat at the Theater Café. Not long after I’d looked at the menu, a grayness covered the sky and by the time my lasagna arrived, rain was pouring down again.

It didn’t seem a good idea to try one of the many walking routes in the area in this kind of weather – my original plan – and so I called it a day. On my way home I decided I’d have to come back in summer and take Boyfriend along. He’d absolutely love the nature and peacefulness of the region.
 

Pin for later

img src=”https://wonderfulwanderings.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/weekend-limburg-belgium.png” alt=”weekend in limburg belgium” width=”337″ height=”550″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-30660″ />
 

This trip was a collaboration with Logeren in Vlaanderen Vakantieland yet I decided to enjoy it all by myself and will continue to only express my own opinion on this blog.