Oh no, you got offended by the
word “Threesome!” I’m so sorry that you’re such a prude. But we’re not really
going to talk about sex in this blog entry, but rather about this spot in the forest
where the borders of Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands converge. There’s
nothing erotic about that, unless you find hiking a la Blair Witch Project into
the woods somehow titillating. But I’m not judging you, dude. To each his own
fetish, no? Now let’s talk about the super sexually charged topic that is
political land borders.
For most of us Filipinos, the concept of a land border is a little bit strange. I mean, we live in an archipelago and we need to board a plane to reach another immigration desk somewhere. Of course, some of you might claim that you can row a boat all the way down to Sabah. Ask the illegal Filipinos there who do so and “forget” to drop by immigration on the way. Simply put, crossing a land border for us is not as common as in other countries that are part of a bigger geographical landmass.
The advent of the modern
nation state meant the establishment of political borders, the geographic
manifestation of a country’s sovereignty. The most common border is that shared
by two states, but there are those that border more than one country. And so
exist what they call in German as a Dreiländereck, that common point at the
border which three countries share. Four-point borders exist in some parts of
the world but in Europe, two and three are the norm. Germany has several,
including the Euregio area.
From Aachen, we boarded a
local bus going to Vals, which is the Dutch town right across the border. We
hopped off a few stops away from Vals itself and began our hike into the woods.
The sky was gloomy, but the scenery was still epic. It felt like Aachen friend
and I were Hobbits being led by Gandalf (for the purpose of this narrative,
Gandalf is her six-footer husband) to the Fellowship of the Ring. And then we
got lost and ended up in Belgium. Or the Netherlands. Or Germany. Or that
common point that all three of them share.
But it’s not always a
threesome when it comes to these land borders. In fact, the first border we
reached was the German-Dutch border. And so we took the obligatory selfie on
those thin wooden logs with the flags of both countries emblazoned on them. The
weird thing is that there weren’t so many people there. A few cartwheels up the
hill will lead you straight to this tower thingy that gives you a panoramic view of
the three Euregio neighbors. Entrance to Saruman’s tower is not free, but
Gandalf paid for our sins.
You can use the elevator if
you tend to become squeamish with heights. The topmost deck has this glass
floor which shows you how high the fall would be if you were to be so unlucky
as to break it with your weight. There are also binoculars aplenty if you want
to spy on the Belgian and Dutch neighbors. You can rely on the map that they
have on top to distinguish which country is which. After some selfie galore, we
decided it was time to go back down and go to the three-border point itself.
The main attraction is surrounded
by a park complete with a playground and a labyrinth. You can also find some shops
selling food. I bet the one hawking fries is Belgian, just like the panoramic
view from above which features windmills is Dutch. And the side lacking sense
of humor is German. Hahaha. Oops, offensive. Germans can be funny too. Moving
on, the spot in question is always tourist infested. It’s basically a mini
obelisk within a flat sphere divided by three lines delineating the borders.
And then there are three flags
behind you if you are taking a selfie. I wonder how things were like before the
Schengen zone was implemented. I don’t think the immigration office was here
exactly. What if you didn’t have a Dutch visa and accidentally stepped on the
Dutch side? Would they arrest you? But if you quickly stepped back to the
German side, that’s like some sort of quick asylum? But who cares about that
now. Seriously. You can literally country hop all you want in this small circle
on the ground.
We then headed to Vals after
that. It’s a really small town that offers cheaper groceries and food supply,
based on what we did there. After some snacks, we waited for the bus back to
Aachen. It wasn’t that long a trip and I had enough time to rest a bit before
riding another bus going to Cologne for my flight back to Berlin. Thinking
about it now, that was indeed a long day. You can make everything simpler with
a train ride but that will take more time I guess. Overall, it was a fun
three-country day trip.
[AACHEN] The Geographical Ménage-à-trois
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