La Hulpe

LA HULPE, BELGIUM: Belgium continues to surprise us with its history and natural beauties. La Hulpe is one of those places where both nature and history come together in one splendid landscape.

Since fall is almost here in Belgium, I wanted to get out of the house with my camera to shoot some fall colors in any nearby site. La Hulpe, a Walloon town (French territory of Belgium), is only 10 miles from Tervuren. Park and trails of La Hulpe is part of Soignes Forest which is the biggest preserved forest in Belgium.

I reached there around 5:30 pm, by then, the sunny harsh light was gone. Many children, especially scout teams, were there to do some nature walks and exploration activities. The park is huge, I mean it’s very big and will need few trips to cover at least the main natural sites. I didn’t really go into deep trails or forest on my first trip, just followed a paved path that led me to the Castle of La Hulpe.

I am not sure if you can actually go inside the castle. But my daughter was saying they went inside during their trip here with school French instructor two years ago. But anyways, it was closed by the time I went there. There is a small but beautiful garden in one side of the castle and front of it is a big meadow. A lake awaits after you cross the neat green field of grass. It was just beautiful. I promised myself that I would come back here once again during the peak of fall and get some nice photos of patches of colors from the trees surrounding the lake.

La Hulpe Park is a perfect place for joggers, runners, photographers, explorers, and people who just love nature. There was a little history board giving some info on the castle as well as Soignes Forest, but everything was in French…so really couldn’t figure out anything. But overall it was worth spending 2 ½ hours here with my camera last Saturday…gotta come back again though.