Sharing favorite Swiss villages/towns

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    Annika
    Moderator
    7094 posts
    21 April 2020 at 6:29:05 #931775

    Haha, I’m afraid you’re totally right Slowpoke! If only we had one mountain of reasonable size over here allowing us to rise above the clouds… We do have a very pretty hilly area in the utmost southern Netherlands, but let’s be honest: it can’t match the Swiss Alps, not even a bit. We too will have to be patient and dream of our next visit to proper Swiss mountains :-).

    Slowpoke
    Participant
    7567 posts
    21 April 2020 at 9:29:25 #931776

    Hi Annika –

    <<“We do have a very pretty hilly area in the utmost southern Netherlands,

    but let’s be honest: it can’t match the Swiss Alps, not even a bit.”>>

    I’ve been to Maastricht, on business, many years ago. It almost didn’t feel like the Netherlands. Since i like to visit such places, I had hoped to visit the Drielandpunt, but did not manage it.

    Slowpoke

    Annika
    Moderator
    7094 posts
    21 April 2020 at 11:53:02 #931777

    That’s too bad, as it’s for sure a nice location and indeed quite untypical for Dutch standards. Well, I assume you’ve had your fair share of hills and mountain during other trips :-).

    Peterli
    Participant
    1206 posts
    21 April 2020 at 23:20:03 #931778

    I was looking at what I could find online about the Vaalserberg, the “Roof of the Netherlands”, and the Drielandenpunt. Interesting that the road running up there from Vaals is called the Viergrenzerweg, whereas in Belgium and Germany their roads are called la Route des Trois Bornes and the Dreiländerweg respectively. So why four instead of three ? I discovered that this is because for a time the tripoint was a actually a quadripoint due to the existence of a territory called Moresnet from 1816 to 1919. It was in a vulnerable location during World War I, occupied and annexed by the Germans, but after the 1919 Treaty of Versailles it was awarded to Belgium, hence today’s tripoint.

    There are two towers on the Vaalserberg, the older and higher one in Belgium, named for King Beaudoin, and the other next less than 800 metres north of the border, in the Netherlands, which is called the Nieuwe Wilheminatoren (opened in 2011) with a neat skywalk. Looks like it would be fun. My, my, we are getting a way from Switzerland, aren’t we ? But this time (for once) it’s not my fault.

    I just found this: kiwidutch.wordpress.com/2015/07/11/new-1838/

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