European Road Trip Day 21

Thursday 21 July 2022

Easy morning with a simple breakfast today. Today the temperatures were a lot more pleasant, and during the day we were as low as 15 degrees! Yesterday we had been up at 39.

We started the day by going back to the store that we visited yesterday. There, Lukas went to a nearby farmacy and bought something numbing for his sore throat.

Next up we drove towards France. But soon, Kim stopped by some kind of memorial stone because a geocache was hidden there. Then she started talking about eating crêpes in France, and just wouldn't stop talking about that. Finally, we entered France and reached a place that had crêpes. Before we went inside we rested a bit though. It was nice.

This place had the vibes of a fast food restaurant where you could make your own crêpe. Kinda like Subway, but with crêpes. Lukas had a savory crêpe with a little bit of everything while Kim had one with ice cream and mango. Kim's was okay, but Lukas didn't like the mushroom in his.

We then drove to a nearby parking lot where Lukas could rest while Kim found a geocache in France.

Next up was Luxembourg, and now it was Kim's turn to drive. We stopped by a McDonald's just inside the border where we were chilling again. Kim also had an oreo shake, took a geocache and we also tried the Luxembourg toilets 🚽

Kim then continued to drive through Luxembourg while Lukas was sleeping. Not much happened though, and what was supposed to take around one and a half hour rather took two and a half hours because of stau. But we finally, after driving through the hills of Luxembourg (it was a lot more hilly than we had thought here) we reached the other side. At the other side of Luxembourg we made a stop at the highest point - Kneiff where we took some funny pictures. Then Lukas drove to the second highest point where we found another geocache.

Next up was Belgium’s highest point. Google Maps guided us there through some small dirt roads in the middle of nowhere and we didn’t even notice when we crossed the border. But we made it to Belgium’s highest point as well. Here it was foggy, a bit rainy and just genereally unpleasant. It felt strange after the past days of heatwave.

Somewhere nearby we found another geocache, and then we were off to McDonald’s in Eupen, Belgium, to make it Kim’s number 22nd McDonald’s in different countries. It was probably one of the most loud McDonald’s we’ve ever been to though. Was not nice!

Next up was the Dreiländer-Punkt between Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. So we went through Aachen and Vaals on our way there, and through some small town roads we winded our way up the little hill. When we got there it was basically empty. We saw maybe 1-2 other groups except for us. Here we took some photos and Kim tried to find a geocache but it didn’t go very well…

Next up we went to a McDonald’s so Kim could check off McDonald’s in country number 23 (Netherlands). It was super weird to get into this place. You could only go in and out one way, which was crossing over the Drive, and at the same time it was really narrow. But we finally got inside and could have a lemonade, coffee, cookie and toilet break.

Then we just had to find somewhere to park for the night, and also find a geocache. It had already become dark, which means harder to find geocaches. We also had the problem that we were in an area with few traditional geocaches, and most of them weren’t too easy, or easy to park close to. In the end we drove through a residential area, parked by the end of a street while Kim ran away a few hundred meters to the geocache, looked for it in the dark, and found it! Then we could both relax knowing today’s mission was finished. Not too far away we found a motorhome parking in the outskirts of Sittard, that we parked in for the night.

Start: Bruchmühlbach-Miesau, Germany

End: Sittard, the Netherlands

Via: Thionville, France

Kneiff, Luxembourg

Signal de Botrange, Belgium

Eupen, Belgium

Aachen, Germany

Vaals, the Netherlands

Countries passed: 5 (Germany, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands)

Drive time: 7 h 57 min

Distance driven: 380 km

Toilet fees: €1 (2 visits)

Parking fees: €0

Toll: €0

Total drive time: 64 h 09 min

Total distance driven: 4161 km