Along and beyond the language border in Brabant Haspengouw

Appointed to the Sint-Niklaaskerk of Outgaarden (V), district of Hoegaarden. The village is located a few kilometres from exit 25 on the E40 Brussels-Liège. Leave, with your back to the church, on the right. Ignore the Meisjesschoolstraat on the right, turn right 100 meters further and immediately turn left into Jodoigne Street. After 150 meters you arrive at an intersection with a beautiful white chapel (1) under a large walnut tree. Walk right on the one-lane concrete track. The landscape is immediately open, wide and particularly quiet.• After 250 meters, ignore a right turn and stay on the concrete track. Where a little more than 800 meters further the concrete track curves perpendicular to the left, you walk to the right on a narrow path between the field and a berm with pollard willows. You are literally walking on the language border here. The church for you is the church of Saint-Barthélemy de Zétrud-Lumay (Zitterd-Lummen in Dutch), which is part of Jodoigne (Jodoigne) in Walloon Brabant. The church you see at the back of the end is the Sint-Gorgoniuskerk in Hoegaarden. The path becomes a hollow road. At the end of the hollow road, walk to the left and 50 meters further diagonally to the left on the paved track.•After 150 meters, at the fork, leave the paved road and continue straight on the paved gravel road. Just 100 meters further, the gravel road becomes a narrow path between field and wooden wall with, among other things, beautiful bushes of black thorns. Walk straight. This path also becomes a hollow road and here the old song applies: in winter when it rains, the paths are deep and very muddy. Boots are not a luxury here. After 500 meters you come out of the hollow road and you see a beautiful landscape of Brabants Haspengouw one kilometer wide, here south of the language border called Hesbaye Brabançonne. • The road becomes hollow again and eventually takes you to a concrete track. Walk to the left and immediately ignore the right exit and the side road to the left. After more than a kilometer, you will arrive in the buildings of Saint-Jean-Geest, also a borough of Jodoigne. Walk right on the paved track of Rue Chez Eugène and after 200 metres turn left onto the two-lane concrete track on Rue de Bronne. On the left, you see a majestic mansion with the inscription 'le viye sécole' and a little further you are at the church of SaintGeorges (2). Pass the church on the left. On the left you see the façade of a beautiful square farmhouse. • Ignore Rue du Milieu on the right and walk straight on Rue Saint-Georges. Ignore Chavée des Vignobles 100 meters further left and Rue de l'Orient on the right and continue straight on Rue de la Gobie. Soon you will leave the buildings again. At the fork, continue straight on the wide field road and leave the concrete track. After a few hundred meters, you walk again in a hollow road. Walk 400 meters further, at the end of the hollow road, at the fork on the left (photo with green rectangle). The view of Haspengouw's fertile fields is again impressive.• After about a kilometre you arrive at a T-junction. Walk left onto the one-lane concrete road. You walk here for a few hundred meters again right at the language border. After 300 meters, ignore the arrow with a green rectangle and turn right onto the concrete track, back in Flanders. Ignore the left turn 350 meters further, but turn left for 200 meters (arrow on the hexagonal sign 'Outgaarden hiking trail'). This concrete track also becomes a hollow road. • After 650 meters, at an intersection of concrete to one-lane tracks, walk straight. A few hundred meters further on, there is a badger castle in the right wall of the hollow road. Leave all secondary roads and exits on the left and walk straight. The concrete track becomes paved track and later again concrete track and takes you to the buildings of Outgaarden. At the beginning of the village, ignore the left and right exits and walk straight. Now follow the hexagonal signs 'Outgaarden hiking trail'. They will take you back to the village church.