Notes

I just realized that today is the official holiday of the German-speaking Community of Belgium. Sadly, I have no better picture, but then again, I’m not aware of any german-speaking belgians visiting this either, so it all evens out.

The Community basically consists of two districts that used to be part of Prussia, but became part of Belgium after the first world war, and have remained so ever since. With 70,000 inhabitants, it’s the smallest of Belgiums three language communities (the other being dutch and french), and it is part of the french Region, probably only to confuse everyone. As the eastern-most part of Belgium, it directly borders Germany.

Eupen, the capital, has an hourly connection to Liège with Intercity trains. Sadly, here, in August 2008, I had just missed it, and I seriously could not be bothered to wait an hour in the clearly bad weather.

One thing that certainly surprised me is not only how low the platform is, barely higher than the rail heads, but also that it’s made out of some sort of red gravel. I have no real clue what the advantage of this construction is meant to be, apart from “cheap”. There is talk about re-opening the old line to Germany via Stolberg, as part of the Euregiobahn, but so far, nobody is committed to paying for this connection, and it’s not included in the official planning of rail projects in the Aachen region for 2015.