ディーストの峡谷・トップ4

mill town

Nice single track through the sunken road that descends from grass forest to the railway. The sunken road is called the hellestraat.

Hollow road that runs from Grasbos down to the Demer valley.

There are two benches in beautiful places along this path. One of the "de Merode" landscape park type at the junction with the slow roads to the mill and a normal one in the bend a little further on where the road also becomes a little wider.

One of the beautiful slow roads in Schaffen that with an expansion of the offer in recent years of Schaffen really have made an even nicer walking village. It takes you along and to various crossings of walking junctions along tree plantations, a much deeper sunken road and many beautiful views over Schaffen. Completely agree with Marc.

Hollow roads (called deep streets here) only occur in hilly regions. They are typical for the loam region, but they can also be found in harder sandstone (such as here in Paal). They were created by man. They were used as a connecting road between farm and field and due to frequent use, loose sand was washed down the slope with every rain shower. In this way, the road was hollowed out deeper and deeper. A hollow road has a mild temperature, the wind has no effect on it. The silence is also noticeable during a walk in the shelter of a deep street.

Pleasant walk on a hollow overgrown path

The name Holleweg appears at quite a few points here, it is easy to lose your way. Just look at the map or Google Maps: there is a Holleweg that starts at the Turnhoutsebaan and makes a half turn at brasserie Jeffrey's to the same Turnhoutsebaan, but closer to Diest. At the same time you have two stretches of Holleweg that leave/arrive on the rightmost part of that half-ellipse: the Holleweg as the narrow road that descends to Diest AND at the same place the Holleweg as a larger track that goes to the left, upwards, and where some of those typical large houses with a view over Diest are located. So you can prepare quite well :) At a certain point you can even look from the Holleweg all the way into the depths to a smaller sunken road with the name, indeed, Holleweg.