Today we are going to take a bicycle ride. I do not take my bike as often as I could. We live on a canal with a bike path. I can bike to Veldwezelt (and do often on a Thursday morning when going to the Bible study with Ruud) in just about 25 minutes. I barely need to ride along or cross a busy road and have bike path the whole way. I can also get into Maastricht, reaching our church building in about 35 minutes and also riding the whole way on separated bike path. But I usually only bike if the car is broken.
If I were to bike, I would look at taking one of the many routes around our house. We are on the edge of a National Park and the bike paths crisscross our area, taking bikers through woods, along canals and rivers and into amazing areas of natural beauty. That is what I want to do today. So come along for the ride (even if it is in your imagination).
From our house we can bike south along the canal, keeping the canal on the left. We cross left over our lock and turn right so that we can bike along “our” castle before returning to the canal, crossing over the bridge and continuing to the South. We bike past several WWII bunkers and then past the second lock on this canal which takes us to the Albert Canal. The larger boats ride this canal and we will turn right, up a hill along the side of the paper factory.
We have a short section of busier road, but there is a separated bicycle path, so no worries. Crossing the bridge first, we ride down to the edge of the canal, now the Albert Canal, keeping it on our right. On the right the little town of Gellik rises above us, with its church pointing to the sky on top of the hill. We pass under two bridges and follow the road up to the 3rd bridge to cross the canal.
We are now following a bicycle trail, well marked throughout this area. We can plan out the direction we wish to go by linking the connection numbers. We pass into the national park and are met by heather fields and quiet woods before passing through some little village homes on our way to more woods. Much of the bike path used to be railroad or local farm paths turned into well-maintained bicycle paths.
Once we cross a main road we can stop at “The Four Lords” - a stone marking the point where four lordships met. This point was also used in the 15th century for judgements, so it is also known as the gallows. Just outside our house are where two of the castles, two of the lordships, were situated: Pietersheim and Rekem.
Biking further we pass by the military domain on the left and come to “Biking through the Heather”, a special bicycle path which carries us through the outstretched fields of heather called the “Mechelse Heide”. At the right time of year the heather blooms purple and stretches out all around. You can see a bit more of what it is like with this video.
As we arrive in the town of As, we can stop for a bite to eat and something to drink at the Station in As. We can even play a short round of disc golf at one of the few courses in Belgium. The normal bike path would continue from here, making a nice loop. But we are going to head the other direction, back towards the river. As we ride we come out by the old mines and the hills made from the diggings. This has become a thrilling tourist attraction where you can ride over the water among the hills. You can see more of that here.
As we follow the bike path to the entrance of the park, we arrive at a shopping center called Maasmechelen Village. Outlet shops, specialty stores and a cinema are all built around the former mine buildings, including several of the elevators still standing tall. Since we are on the canal here, we will follow it South. This is one of the longest straitest stretches of canal. Technically, if you had a camera good enough, you could see from near our house (at the castle in Rekem) to this point in Maasmechelen, meeting no obstructions.
As we bike back home, we will pass an old windmill which has been turned into a restaurant and B&B before we reach the castle in Rekem. The last section takes us past a new cafe which has been built in what long ago was a bridge house - the home of the man who would open the bridge across the canal.
And so we have see woods, fields of heather, special landmarks, lakes and hills in one bike ride. And this is just one of the many rides around where we live at the moment. This is one of the things we will miss.
