Tourism Flemish Brabant launches cycling and walking offer: discover illuminated orchards

The more spring progresses, the more the Hageland fruit orchards bloom and the apple, pear and other blossoms create a fragrant atmosphere. The budding blossoms are the sign for Tourism Flemish Brabant and 13 municipalities to start ‘B(l)roeid Hageland’.

“’B(l)roeid Hageland’ focuses on cycling and walking options. You drive and walk along fruit plantations, paths and roads with hedges, bushes and shrubs, which also bear a beauty of blossoms. If you want to go out by bike, you will find inspiration in the publication ‘Bloemend Hageland Fietsen’. Seven cycling routes take you past attractions and blossom landscapes. More than a hundred addresses, ranging from ice cream bars to blossom terraces to regional producers, give you a taste of the Hageland,” says Gunther Coppens, deputy for Tourism. Tourism Flemish Brabant also selected fourteen spring walks, including two new ones. These are the Meensel-Kiezegem walk in Tielt-Winge, which leads past fruit farmer Vanhellemont, and the Binkom walk in Lubbeek where the spring bloomers in the Table Forest are an attraction in themselves. Here and there along the routes, works of art embellish the Hageland with a nod to fruit growing.

Nocturnes and blossom bars provide a special experience. It is not always possible to walk through fruit plantations in the evening or at night or enjoy a snack and a drink among the blossoms. In Zoutleeuw you can walk five kilometers through magically lit orchards. Landen provides a nocturnal walk of 1.7 kilometers with ‘Magical Blossoms’. In Attenrode you take a four-kilometre nocturne walk through illuminated fruit plantations. A blossom bar, operated by the KLJ, can be found in the pear orchard in Hoksem. The Gelrode fruit growers open their blossom bar on the Mensberg, between the fruit trees, in Gelrode.

(KHT)