Stelling van Amsterdam

This route covers the defensive cordon of dykes and fortifications around Amsterdam, as part of the “Waterlinie”: starting at Volendam on the border of the former Zuiderzee, Northeast of Amsterdam, it runs westward, bends South crossing the NortSea-canal that connects the Amsterdam harbour with the North Sea, and then curves to the east and North again, to the Zuiderzee – the land outside this area would be flooded in order to block enemy access to Amsterdam. There are seven stages, and we walked them in autumn and winter of 2014 and 2015.

The route has been tracked and images have been taken but I still have to process them, but if done, these will be available here.

Willibrordpad

This is a long distance footpath along Dutch Basilica: Catholic churches that have given special meaning because of their architecture, artwork, extraordinary services. The route covers the Catholic areas in part North of the Rhine; this part of the Netherlands is mainly protestant, Catholics are a minority in this part, except in two regions: Around Utrecht, and the the Twente region – the province Overijssel used to be an extension of the diocese of Utrecht.
The route is not signposted, we used the booklet and I downloaded the GPS tracks. We walked this route in 21 stages between September 2013 and March 2015, not in sequence but we did cover the whole route, depending of facility of return trip (by public transport or, in some occasions, by bike). Our dog at the time accompanied us on these walks. Images and tracks cab be found here

Long Distance Footpath Nr 16: Along the Roman Boundary

During winter 2018-2019 we walked the Limes – the Roman boundary in the Netherlands, along the river Rhine, from the North sea beach where the river ends (at least, in Roman times) to the German boundary. In total 15 walks between 30-Sep-2018 and 28-Feb-2019. Just one part wasn’t done completely, because return would be “impossible”, so we had to shorten that walk for some time.
All images have been processed, and available here.
There is an extension of this route, up to Xanten in Germany – this has been walked as well, some time later. I’m now processing these flies, link will follow

Vennbahn – Ardennes

For our 2019 holiday we searched for a route to cycle – not too heavy – and found the Vennbahn – a former railroad from Aachen – just over the border in Germany – that zigzagged on the boundary of Germany and Belgium, on the contours on the High Moors (“Hoge Venen” or “Hautes Faignes” in Belgium, “Hohes Venn” in Germany, hence the name) and the Eiffel area, all the way South to TroisVierges in Luxemburg. The whole track is (mostly) well signposted, but a full GPS track is also available. However – to get to the beginning, and the return path were to be planned. Luckily, return is also signposted, for the larger part, when following the Belgian Long distance Cycleway from Bouillon (near the French border) and Liege. To get to this route, another cycleway could be used, so I was left to create the intermediate tracks on GPS software (Garmin Basecamp) – and the routes to get to Aachen and to Maastricht. All tracks were loaded on the GPS unit, just in case…
Staying overnight was planned on campsites along the way, only the first day we had some small showers, the most heavy one in our destination for that day. Luckily there was always some shelter nearby – the last one opposite a hotel; and the last day, when we arrived in Maastricht, the weather forecast made us return by train instead of cycling on. For the rest, weather was fine.
The route itself was indeed easy – the Vennbahn will go up steadily until arriving in Luxenbourg, the last 10-15 kilometers steeper than the previous part, But once that is passed, it goes steadily down. The route to Bastogne is also rather flat, but the rest goes up and down – but never very steep – with some expetions. The last pasrt, from Liege to Maastricht, is as flat as can be…
Since we cycled this route, the number of images is limited – just our one day stay in Wiltz give the opportunity to look around more than is possible on bike.
because we followed the pre-defined route, I didn’t track our way. Images and tracks can be seen here.

Vorarlberg (A) , SanktGallen (CH)

We like to have a stay in a mountainous region once in a while- we see enough flat lands – so we planned a 10-day trip to Austria, to the most Western regions of Austria, that is said to be a nice place to have mountain walks – not too heavy – and normally good weather; from theer we would go to the Southern shores of the Bodensee – the county of Sankt Gallen in Switzerland.
Our stay in Austria was in the valley GrossWalsertal, at the campsite with the same name in Raggal Plazera. This vally is actually a nature reserve in some form: farming and forestry can be practiced, and tourism is limited – just two of three campsite in the whole area. Is means it is a quiet environment. Weather was fine; though all days started chilly and a bit misty at times, but during the day it was normally quite sunny and temperatures would go up pretty fast: clouds would build up, and in the later afternoon and early evenings, showers and thunderstorms would develop – and we had a few.
Second part we stayed at a campsite near a farm, about 5 kilometers from the lake, in the midst of orchards and meadows. For two days we made our way to the lake by car, walked a route along the shoreline (and more inland) and headed back by bus or train. The last day, we made a boat trip.

Of course all walks have been tracked and photographed.

Walking Madeira

As spring is said to be (one of) the best periods to visit Madeira (“The Flower Island”) we went there in second half of April on a 14-day trip.
But as elsewhere in Europe, it wasn’t the best of springs: cold, wet and windy. Nevertheless, it wasn’t that bad on the island, so we could do some nice walks along the “Levadas” – canals that transport water from the lush Northern side of the island to the dryer South. Laboured long ago by the first Portuguese settlers, these canals follow the contour of the mountains and all have some form of footpath along them for maintenance. So great for easy walking. At least, most of the time. But there are troublesome stretches (or wet ones) as well.
Someone told us “Madeira is flat” :). Well, that holds once you are along the levada, but to get there requires climbing – by foot or by car – and sometimes it means quite a gain in altitude.
Despite the outlook, most of the time the weather was nice for walking – just one occasion we were trapped (more or less) by a hail storm and severe winds, on another location just severe winds, but given the location it wasn’t much of a surprise.
I tracked most of the walks and took pictures on each of them – in this environment it means collections to be stitched because of either wideness or height of the view (or both).

DonauRadweg – Donaueschingen to Passau

After tracking the Danube river from Passau to Vienna in 2012, and Vienna to Budapest in 2015, we covered the remaining, close-to-home part between the origin of the Danube river in Donaueschingen all the way to Passau. Planned to take 10 days, we rode the whole 600 kilometers in 8 days, and travelled back by train the same day we arrived in Passau. Again, rather flat but hilly (even steep) in some places, and in a way, more of the same. So though the whole route has been tracked and photographed, the number of images is less than normal.
The data can be found here

WeserRadweg

We had a short stay at the beginning of the Weser river, where the Weser-Radweg starts; just a first stay in a strange environment for our new (6-month old) dog. We stayed in a holiday home, and each day, we took our bikes and the DoggyRide to a starting point, cycled one bank of the river, crossed it by bridge or ferry, and back along the opposite bank – to the ferry or bridge where we started. Or we drove to a point for a walk.
The images and tracks can be accessed here

Morocco 2016

Our previous trip to Morocco was planned to visit the High Atlas, but that was cancelled and so we did another one. This year however, the trip was guaranteed to depart, and we still wanted to walk in the mountains. The we headed to Marrakech, had a bus ride to Asni, “the gate into the Atlas mountains” for a week long trekking that brought us over a number of passes at 2500 meters and up, to get from one valley to another. It meant climbing each day, about 1000 meters of more, and a similar descent to the next hostel. Finally another climb to the foothills of the highest peak of Morocco: the Tubkal mountain. Some of the group went up the summit the next day (another 1100, very hard meters, to 4100 m or so), we kept it lower. Of course we walked – our luggage transported (and me for a few kilometers…) by mule. After this, descending to Asni, and a bus ride back to Marrakech to end the trip.
The trekking has been tracked and of course, I kept my camera nearby, mainly to memorize – visually – the countryside; Mountains mean wide views. Of course, there are images about plants and, though not many, animals and people, and buildings. All images and tracks are available , you’ll find the tracks in both generic (.gpx) and GoogleEarth (.kmz) format in the Trackdata folder.

Donauradweg – Vienna to Budapest (2015)

The whole Danube river can be followed by bike – from the source in Donaueschingen in Germany to the end in the Black Sea on the boundary of Romania and Moldavia – where the delta in one large nature reserve. In 2012 we rode from Passau to Vienna, this time we extended the trip from Vienna to Budapest. In Hungary, according the booklet, the route along the river housed a lot of industry, heavy traffic and less nature, or we had to cross and follow the river on the northern bank, through Slowakia. Our route however, lead us through inland Hungary, on roads with little traffic – but with, at places, very bad surface conditions. Quite some difference in campsites: Very new, or ‘old-style’, dating from the communist years.
We parked our car in Vienna, at a campsite in the city, and in Budapest, we stayed at a camping site in the middle of living quarters; Returned the next day to Vienna to get the car; drove it to Budapest and we stayed a few days to walk around and visit a few interesting places. After that, we drove along the Balaton lake and ended up in a small city in the south, where we stayed a few days. But there wasn’t very much to see, and the weather became rainy so we returned home a few days earlier than expected – with an overnight stop in the South-East of Germany.
The route has been tracked and I took pictures during the route and in Budapest