Halle Bluebell Dream

Halle is a small city situatued about 30 minutes on the train from Brussels and it's location on the border between the Flemish and French speaking regions of Belgium has resulted in it having an extremely interesting history. Its 35,000 inhabitants are most likely some of the most bilingual of the Belgian population and this municipality plays home to to the wonderful Hallerbos forest that I am going to talk about.

Easily reachable, with regular busses running from the main train station, Hallerbos or 'the Blue Forest,' is covered with an stunning purple carpet of Bluebells (or Hyacinthoides non-scripta) in the spring which attracts thousands of visitors from all over Belgium and further abroad too. Around mid-April every year the charming tubular-shaped, violet-blue flowers appear all over this forest and the light shines throught the beech trees above, creating a marvellous sight not to be missed. There are well marked paths and maps of varying lengths and difficulties however it's not difficult to find your way in this beautiful forest and if you have time there's plenty to explore.

The shuttle bus between the station and the forest is free and leaves every half hour on the busiest weekends, or there is a small amount of parking in the forest if you go during the week. Otherwise, take the 156 bus and let the driver know where you're heading so he can tell you where to get off. From there it's an easy 15 minute walk that is signposted until the entrance to the forest.

I went to the forest on a Tuesday afternoon, when the sun was shining high in the sky, and most people were at work - (one of the benefits of being a student!) We took the train to Halle station and continued with the bus from there. The driver was particularly helpful and after a short walk we were in the forest. It was incredible and surpassed all expectations.

Walking down a leaf coated path, the millions of beautiful purple flowers coated the ground on either side of us, filling the air with their sweet scent and stealing our breath away. The shafts of light that snuck through the canopy overhead highlighted certain areas as we wandered along in silent amazement at the incredble sight before us. It was like being in a dream. And as it was a Tuesday there was no-one around to ruin the dream or snap us back to reality.

We stayed like this for around an hour, totally awestruck and not wanting to break the silence and ruin it, just listening to the birds singing in the trees and the occasional slight breeze that ruffled the leave above. If you have read any of my other posts than you will, by now, know that I'm a bit of a sucker for nature but I find it difficult to imagine that anyone could not be impressed by the Hallerbos Forest.

Unfortunately, this magical natural phenomenon only lasts for a few weeks. As the beach trees begin to blossom overhead, the light that reaches the Bluebells below becomes more and more restricted, causing them to turn a dark-purple/ grey and then to wither altogether. For this reason it is thought that the best time to visit the forest is in the weeks following the blossoming of the beech trees as the bright green new leaves and striking purple of the flowers creates a wonderful effect. As with all natural phenomenon, the timing at which this occurs can be somewhat unpredictable however the Hallerbos website provides daily updates on the situaton within the forest as well as videos. Information on parking and the walks avilable as well as disabled access can also be found on the website here.

Having finished our walk, we decided to walk back to the station rather than taking the bus, as it really was a warm day and this turned out to be a great decision. We slowly made our well along the small country roads using Google maps and passed fields after field as we went. I think we saw one car on the roads throughout the whole hour that we were walking and as we went over a bridge we even spotted a turtle in the river below!!

I thoroughly enjoyed my Hallerbos experience and would recommend that anyone in Belgium go and take a look for themselves. Even if it's not the prime bluebell spotting time, there's so many more exciting things to look out for including pink and yellow flowers and the giant Sequoia trees. This is a really great place to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

My only possible slight criticism is, as you are obviously not allowed to touch the Bluebells, they had cordoned off the paths using red and white striped tape. This in places, ruined the visual effect of the Bluebells and took away from the natural vibe of it all. In my opinion, a few well located signs would have suffised. That being said, this was only a very minor flaw and I'll be back again to visit next year for sure!!!

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