Enjoy walking in Tessenderlo

You will walk on this route through the wonderfully quiet nature reserve Gerhagen, located in Belgian Limburg just west of the village of Tessenderlo. Here you will find beautiful quiet fens, heathland and drifting sand areas. Your starting point is Café-Brasserie De Bosrand in Tessenderlo. Literally on the edge of the forest, this is a cozy place and popular resting place for cyclists and hikers. You can start with a nice cup of coffee or tea. If you plan to start very early, you can even have breakfast here. You can reserve this via the website.

Less than half a kilometre from the start, you will walk past the Bosmuseum Gerhagen. This small nature museum is worth a visit because you will find very nice exhibitions that relate to the nature reserve you are walking through. The museum is passionately run by the nature association Werkgroep Ecologie Tessenderlo. You have free access during the opening hours that you can find on their website, so you don't have to leave it for that. The museum has permanent exhibitions with a lot of nice visual material, but also temporary exhibitions that relate to the season.

Near the Forest Museum is the 18.75 meter high VVV tower. Also really worth the climb, you have a beautiful view of the entire area. You can see the Houterenberg among other things. This is a so-called witness hill. These are hills of iron sandstone that were formed in the time that Flanders was still under water. The sands that were deposited during this period are called the sands of Diest (Diestian sands). The special thing about this sand is that it is strongly glauconitic. Glauconite contains relatively much iron. The hills therefore bear witness to the former existence of the Diestian Sea and are therefore called witness hills.

From the viewing tower you first walk a few kilometres through fairly dense coniferous forest. Halfway through the walk the forest often breaks open for a field or meadow. After a good eight kilometres you will return to Café-Brasserie De Bosrand. High time for a nice lunch? You will not visit the town of Tessenderlo now, but you can visit it later. The Sint-Martinuskerk on the Markt is definitely worth it. The so-called choir rood screen or choir screen is a sight to behold. It dates from 1520 and is one of the five Gothic rood screens that Belgium still has. This rood screen, actually a 'stone lacework', is one of the largest and most beautiful in Belgium.