In May I visited an old friend in Hasselt, Belgium. Hasselt lies directly south of Eindhoven, with a straight line distance of ~60km. It sounds all so simple. Here is how I travelled to Hasselt on a Saturday:
- Caught a train at Eindhoven in the direction of Maastricht (currently ~60km away).
- Alighted in Sittard 45 minutes later, due to trackworks between Sittard and Maastricht (~40km away, so some progress made).
- Got on a bus for the rest of the trip to Maastricht. This added about 10-15 minutes to my trip (now ~25km away). By the time I asked information where the Hasselt bus left from and found the stop, I was 40 minutes early for the bus. Sat for a while.
- Hopped on a bus towards Genk (the bus doesn’t run all the way to Hasselt on the weekend). This took the scenic route through Flanders — we passed a sign pointing to Genk and actually turned the other way. Arrived in Genk 50 minutes later (~12km away — how on earth does it take 50 minutes to cover 12kms?!??!?).
- I then had to be collected and taken by car to Hasselt. We detoured to the uni in Diepenbeek on the way, so that wasn’t a direct route either.
So after a good 3.5 hours, I was finally at my destination. It’s times like this one really needs a car and a licence. Public transport across the border is not easy to find. Oh, and after all that, Hasselt was good: good chocolate, lots and lots of space (unlike this side of the border), and good food.
