Readers from last week will know that I have been in Belgium this week. On Friday, I walked from Brussels in the direction of Luxembourg.

Neither of them would be my first choice of places to visit, but I’m here to interview Hugh Pope, journalist, peace activist, democracy defender turned route guide deviser and author, who claims that he can challenge my prejudice by revealing hidden secrets on the green route he has devised between the two capital cities.

Although having lived in Brussels for eight years, he is searching for something of which he learned about only that morning, that is somewhere along the trail he devised. It is a plaque associated with the 150th anniversary of Britain’s victory at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. It could have been the eve or just a few days before the battle but reportedly a cricket match took place between officers from the two armies, on what is now known as the Les Pelouse des Anglais (the English Lawn), in the Bois de la Cambre. Remarkably we stumbled upon it fairly quickly. A quirky coincidence is that the plaque was installed on the 18th of June which just happens to be the date of my wedding anniversary.

“It’s just not cricket.” This expression is used in English as a matter of disdain, pointing out ill-mannered behaviour which bends from the accepted norm, against the rule of good sportsmanship.
Imagine being court-martialed for overstepping your orders, yet be commemorated for carrying out an extraordinarily brave mission. That is what happened to an RAF pilot during the Second World War. Fulfilling his orders in completing a mission to destroy trains used by the Germans, Jean de Selys Longchamps, instead of returning to his home airfield in East Anglia  changed his flight path to fly over the rooftops of Brussels, pelting machine gun ammunition at a building which housed the regional headquarters of the Gestapo. He is commemorated with a golden bust outside the very building.
You will pass this memorial if you keep to Hugh’s route on the first leg of the Brux-Lux trail. 

The trail passes over territory bloodily contested over the centuries, not just Waterloo but for both world wars. Towards Luxembourg, Hugh tells me you pass through forests that conceal France’s greatest single military loss; at the Battle of Frontiers, 27,000 French soldiers died in one day. As you walk the trail, you can sense the trauma all around you. 

Hugh reaffirmed my belief that there’s so much more to walking than walking. There’s the unexpected discovery of things along the way, not just what one physically encounters, but also the shared experiences of those whom you accompany, fellow walkers, alive and passed, and other creatures too. 

Happy walking

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