Cycling around Bree

This tour takes you around Bree, a picturesque town in Belgian Limburg. Bree is also called the Pearl of the Kempen. You will find sights such as the Old Town Hall from 1591, the Michielshuis from the seventeenth century and the town hall, a former monastery. The street pattern of Bree still corresponds to the medieval pattern. The defensive towers on the edge of the city are also a reminder of the medieval past. Bree is a typical Limburg town: friendly and Burgundian. There are many cozy terraces to enjoy a coffee with fresh Limburg pie or watch passers-by strolling. Outside Bree you cycle through an agricultural landscape of stream valleys and fruit orchards. Every now and then you drive past a typical Kempen long facade farm, a house where the front house, stable and barn are built together and all doors are placed in the long facades. You also cycle through the village of Opitter and the nearby Itterbeek valley, where you will find alder forest and slope forests. The stream valley connects to the Solterheide, which is part of the Hoge Kempen National Park. The Solterheide mainly consists of coniferous forest, but you will also see fields, hedgerows and chestnut avenues here.