The lovely landscape in Belgian Limburg

This route takes you many kilometers through the beautiful nature of the Limburg Kempen. You cycle through large forests, quiet heathland and lovely stream valleys. You will also pass through some pleasant villages, such as Ophoven and Opitter. There is always a terrace where you can enjoy a fresh piece of Limburg pie. You start your tour 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. Some farms have a thatched roof, so it seems as if you are looking back in time a few centuries. You enter the Dune Belt via the Itterbeek valley. This varied and extensive heath, forest and dune landscape covers approximately 3,000 hectares and includes the Solterheide and the Gruiterbos. Centrally located in this area is the Flemish nature reserve Oudsberg, the highest and largest open drift dune in Flanders. In the Solterheide you mainly see coniferous forests, but also fields, hedgerows and chestnut avenues. In the adjacent Gruitroderbos you also mainly cycle through freshly scented pine forests, although in some places the original heath and drifting sand areas have remained intact. The large coniferous forests had to provide wood for local mining during the first half of the twentieth century. The influence of mining is also reflected in the landscape in another way. Southwest of Opglabbeek are two high peaks, one of which is 165 meters high. They are not hills, but mine slag heaps from the former Waterschei coal mine. These accumulations consist of the rocks removed from the mine during the extraction of coal. There seems to be no end to the forests, because you also cycle through the Heiderbos, where, in addition to conifers, many juniper berries grow. With around 7,000 shrubs, this is the largest existing juniper population in Flanders. In Bergerven, just south of Neeroeteren, you drive through a reserve where red heather was reintroduced a few years ago to cover the poor soils.