Vaalserberg

Where is Vaalserberg?

Vaalserberg is part of the Foothills of the Ardennes, Limburg.

You will find it in: the Netherlands.

Summit: 50.755° N, 6.021° E

The story behind it

This gentle hill in South Limburg is really the last wave of the Ardennes, rolling north until the land flattens out again. Under the soil lies limestone and flint, which people once dug out here, and the woods on top are full of tall beeches that turn copper in autumn. The famous spot is the Drielandenpunt, the three-country point where the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany touch: a stone marker stands there and children love to hop from one country to the next in a single second. Long ago a small extra territory made it a four-country point, which is still remembered in the name of a nearby cafe. Two viewing towers and a hedge maze stand in the trees, buzzards circle above the fields, and cyclists puff up the winding road because for Dutch riders this is a serious climb.

Find it on the globe

Vaalserberg is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.