“We now look at this beautiful environment with different eyes”
Author: Harry Lindelauf
Photography: Laurent Stevens
Mieke and Hub Aussems are Walkers with a capital W. Their kilometres lie everywhere: Alps, Eifel, Ardennes, South Limburg. Filled with, for example, the Pieterpad, for a very long time the annual Margraten walk, and the GR5 to Diekirch. Now the long-distance walk of the Via Belgica is added to that.
They literally and figuratively already have quite a few kilometres on the counter. That is possible because at a young age they came into contact with that attractive phenomenon called walking. Mieke: “As a young girl I walked the Margraten walk in scouting uniform, which is held every year to commemorate the soldiers at the American cemetery there.” And indeed, Hub was there too, although they did not yet know each other: “I was an altar server and we walked the route as a group.”
Austrian Alps
When they later start dating and marry, the Austrian Alps become their walking area. Hub: “That is where walking really began for us.” Although Mieke comes from a true cycling family (her sister literally cycled around the world in a time when this was still unique), she walks wholeheartedly. Both are active in the walking club in their former hometown Vilt near Valkenburg.
Walking for pleasure
They enjoy walking and do it for pleasure, to enjoy the environment in which they are guests. “Real performance walks are not for us. For us it is about the landscape, that is what we enjoy,” says Hub. Although Mieke does keep a meticulous diary of all their walks, including the distances walked.
They have seen a lot together and fully agree: South Limburg offers the most beautiful walking experience. “The landscape is more accessible and friendlier to a walker than the Ardennes. The Eifel is empty; here you find a terrace every few kilometres. We now look at this beautiful environment with different eyes.”
The landscape is more accessible and friendlier for a walker than the Ardennes.—
Villa Ten Hove
The love of walking in their own environment now gets a new impulse with the long-distance walk of the Via Belgica. Hub: “We like to have a goal when we go walking, the distances of the stages are good for us, and thanks to the explanations and the orange booklet we also look at the landscape differently. It is nice to know that the Romans walked here without the burden of national borders. Impressive too what they technically achieved 2000 years ago with, for example, the hot-air heating we saw in the Thermenmuseum in Heerlen. And in Voerendaal we stood at the field where the villa rustica Ten Hove lies underground. I would really have liked to see that, a pity that corn grows there now.”
