8/8 – Landegem morning hiking and Brussels Trolls afternoon

Aw. Sad. Our last day here in Europe. Last day in Belgium. Last day in Landegem. We’re making the most of it! Using some of the great maps our host has in the apartment, combined with the placards we found yesterday at the lighthouse, we head out early in the morning to go hike the Oude Kalevallei wandelroute around the corn fields.

It is yet another gorgeous and cool beginning to the day as we meander through the fields, along little paths, watching the multitude of hot air balloons that are all over the place here.

Finishing the loop before 8am, we take off on another little path through the cornfields, just to extend our nature exploration a little longer. Its great – you can’t get lost in the cornfields, always just aim for the windmill!

Then it is back to the apartment – getting the thumbs up from the speed limit sign! So cute! – a quick breakfast of our fresh eggs, suitcases packed and into the car we go for our last journey through the countryside and on up toward Brussels.

Our last stop in Belgium today is the De Schorre Park where there are Trolls! 7 Thomas Dambo trolls all around the park. We are so excited. Or I should say we were so excited. We have been planning this visit for ages – and then when I looked at directions to the park this week, it said the troll area was closed because they were breaking down the huge Tomorrowland music festival. No! We were devastated but decided to go to the park anyway – we’ve got nothing but time before check in at the airport Sheraton – to see if we could sneak in or something.

Easily navigating to the parking lot, we found that most of the park was indeed all fenced off – with a guard sitting along the road near the restaurant by the lake (which was open). We had our picnic lunch with us and managed to find a nice little table in the playground, then, after eating, walked back up top to explore the perimeter of the park. Here you can see all the big, huge industrial strength plastic lined fences that block access and sightlines into the park. Bummer.

In researching the park, we had identified different parking areas, so after our little stroll, we decided to go explore. Ed brilliantly navigated around the park – through these little streets in a village (God, the roads! Crazy small and narrow – thank heavens most drivers are polite here!) and found a parking space at the back of the park where it was open and voila! Trolls! Yay!

There are 7 Trolls in the park, we found 3! Our first was Arvid, with his nose ring, sitting a little forlornly on the boardwalk that leads through the forest with a knife in his hand because he likes to carve his dreams into trees.

Further on there is Hannes, sitting atop one of the park buildings, putting pearls on a string “so everyone can see.” This is so fun. We are off to find more Trolls!

But suddenly, we are blocked from going further by the big plastic covered fences. Boo hoo. We know there are Trolls right across the stream – so we take a side trail that says it is the “barefoot” trail – which has a whole bunch of different obstacles you need to walk through – like different textures of rock or mulch (not that I’d EVER walk through here barefoot) and we can see, ever so slightly, a little bit of Little Nora’s belly in between the overgrown trees. Look closely!

Continuing along the “barefoot” trail, we find great wood totem carvings, and a fun narrow beam like walkway that leads us back to the main boardwalk where we heat off to try to find Mikil, strong as a dragon, carrying a big bucket of, well, something. Unfortunately, Mikil is located on the other side of a very overgrown pond at the base of a really steep hill. No matter how we trek or climb, there is just no way to get to him. But once again, if you look closely, you can just see him peeking through the woods. (One of the challenges of these particular Trolls, besides the stupid festival break-down, is that they are 7 years old now, and beginning to disintegrate back into nature – which is exactly what Dambo intends for all his Troll statues. Thus, no one is actually maintaining the Trolls or the locations in which they are placed. They are just naturally and organically decaying back to their original state.)

Figuring we were done, with no way to access the main parkland from here, we turn and head back to the car, passing Arvid again for some more close up and personal photo opps. You can really see how he is breaking down in these pictures.

Up at the top of the path, we decide we don’t want to leave yet, so we head off in the opposite direction of the car on a lovely little perimeter walk that….is the BEST happy accident ever. Because at the end of the path, what do we find? Kamiel (the Troll leader who is “wise and kind” and when he puts on his other mask – that is hanging from the tower, btw – he can speak the language of animals, both in this world and beyond”) and the Magical Tower! Yes! This is the tower they built, “as tall as a troll,” to show all the “little people” that their actions were hurting the environment and the earth and that “all beings are one in the soul.” (All of Dambo’s stories have an environmental moral.)

This is like finding the holy grail – I kid you not! We are like kids in a candy store – or in a Magical Tower. We climb all over the place – up on Kamiel’s lap, all the way up to the top of the Tower for views down to Kamiel and his fire circle and out across the park and toward Brussels.

Tower exploration completed, we wander around the different Sun catchers hung around the base, and the cool central pole that looks like it might be able to turn or winch something around. There is also a fantastic wood carved open book with the 7 Trolls and the Magic Tower legend carved into its pages. It is so old, it is faded and almost gone, but you can just see the letters and words in a ghostly fashion.

An absolutely excellent final day adventure. Fantastic! And then it is off to the airport, past the gorgeous flowering shrubs that are found in various places along the road, successfully navigating to the Rental Car building, then trekking the 20 minutes back to the airport to check into our room at the Sheraton.

All that’s left is repacking, a visit to the gym, the bar for aperitif, and then later dinner at the restaurant here in the hotel – Belgian Onion Soup, smoked salmon tartare and of course cheese croquettes.