Hiking report

Hiking around Aachen and triple point!

And here we go, it happened again.

There was this storm this week in this area of Germany which allegedly brought everything into disarray. That’s certainly true, but it’s also true that it was more a local effect. Here in Düsseldorf, for example, nearly nothing happened, like most of the places in Germany. Nevertheless, as soon as there’s an excuse for the German Railway, they’ll exploit it. And in such a case, you never know what could happen.

This morning, we were first waiting for the train at platform 4, where the train was meant to arrive. Then an announcement came that the train was arriving at pl. 16, which is very much the other side of the train station, requiring a few minutes of walk. The train was supposed to have a delay of 30 min. We simply waited there, thinking 30 min is very much acceptable. It actually indeed arrived 30 min later – at pl. 4. With no one realizing that the train was already gone, it silently disappeared from the display. In the meantime I could see the kind of train we should have taken going in the right direction far in the horizon. And just as always, no explanation coming from the German Railway.

The next train was 1 hour later. This time, again, it was supposed to arrive at pl. 4. A few minutes before the train arrived, it was announced that the train was arriving at pl. 16. As stated above, it’s not possible to find a compromise between pl. 4 and pl. 16 for the distance, we had to move to pl. 16. After yet another delay of 15 min, this time, there was the announcement that the train is already at pl. 4. There was a huge panic at pl. 16 – everyone trying to run down the stairs, darting through the train station from one side to the other, only to find out that the train was in fact not there… At least we only had to wait for another 10 min for the train. It was close to 2 when we finally arrived in Aachen.

Oh, maybe I should mention that today’s hike was meant to be the 200th, which in reality now is the 199th, because yesterday a similar problem happened and we had no idea what was true and what wasn’t, which in the end forced us to cancel the event. Anyway, since it was supposed to be a special event, I decided to go to the triple point again. We’ve actually been there a few times, and today’s hike was maybe around 3/4 previous trails. I can imagine that after having done 200 hikes, we’ll probably see more and more overlapping trails. I’ll keep saying that they are new, but in the end I don’t really know how convincing that’s gonna be.

Aachen is a super interesting city. It’s not a small place, but you just have to go 20 min or so in some direction and you are already in the nature. The area we visited today is actually the hilliest area for the Netherlands, which is of course not extremely hilly, but still it’s significantly different from the flat land you’d imagine in that country.

Just like in the Eifel, which lies right next to this area, the nature was apparently untouched by the drought of a few years ago, in strong contrast to the Sauerland. We were going through an opulent forest all the time. I also have the feeling that the trees are more beautiful here than in the Sauerland. Is it only my impression?

Just as always, there was nearly nothing important at the border between Germany and Belgium. We were all taking a photo of this sign because it was written in French :D. It’s a pity that there’s nothing particularly ceremonial here.

We had a very long break at the triple point. I was expecting a lot more people here – after all most of the Germans are apparently having their vacations inside Germany. But it was just like in the previous years. With the low number of people today, we also didn’t have to look for people at the end of the break.

We didn’t have much time when we reached Aachen. We almost immediately took a train back to Düsseldorf. Thanks German Railway for the journey today.

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