After our exams in June, my friend K and I got the crazy idea to drive to the south of the country and just see where we’d end up. K had almost never been there and had made a short bucket list. I on the other hand know the region well and told her I could guide her around. My grandparents have a caravan in Trois-Ponts and all we knew was that we were going to sleep there.
On our first night we went to see the waterfalls (which is a big word for what they actually are) in Coo, but the park was already closed. When we arrived at the campsite we found the roads in such bad condition that all the bumping and shaking made our license plate break off the back of the car. Splendid! I thought we’d move all our stuff from the car and get installed so I could then call my grandfather to ask where he keeps his tools. I’m a handy girl and knew I could fix the license plate, but apparently I’m not handy enough to open the door of a caravan. What kind of a lock was that!? Both K and I had to try multiple times before everything clicked by chance and we were finally inside. If our first night was setting the tone for the rest of our trip we were in for something.
Luckily, everything went smooth from then on. On day two we wanted to explore Malmedy, which is a town I used to visit often when I was young. It’s the closest “large” city to the campsite and the only place I knew other than the Knauf mall across the border in Luxemburg where we could spent a quiet morning walking around and shopping. We stayed until lunch (picture) and checked out the tourist information center, because we agreed we couldn’t leave the Ardennes without making a hike. Because I’ve been on most of the trails and know most villages by heart, I let K choose our destination and she picked out a 12km hike in Mackenbach. So, to the German region we went!
We got lost a little so we walked about 15km before we made it back to the car. There are some pictures from our hike above and you will see why I didn’t mind walking a little longer. It was so beautiful to see all the forest flowers blooming and since it had rained earlier that day the woods simply smelled amaaaaazing too. We saw a billion butterflies, beetles, salamanders and even a fox. It was good. But it also made us hungry! We had no idea where we were, all I knew was that we were to far South to go back to the campsite to make dinner. We needed food NOW. Our GPS told us St Vith wasn’t too far and I knew the highway there would take us right back to the caravan. We had ice cream and then pizza and then more ice cream, because… well… #YOLO and we deserved it.
On day three we finally went to Luxemburg. K picked out Clervaux because she had heard good things about it, but the weather was kind of awful and a lot of things were closed. We decided not to stay too long, had a coffee and some photo fun by the Chateaux de Clervaux (12th century) and the parish church (early 1900s). We would have loved to dive into the history of the town more, but alas, we went home. On our way back to Flanders we made a quick pit stop in Houffalize, but since the tourist season wasn’t in full swing yet, there wasn’t much to do there either. It soon started raining again and we decided to hit the road and go home. It had been nice. Very nice.
Somewhere in the next weeks we’re going North! The Netherlands better watch out.
We’re coming. And we’re driving.
