Bizarre Baarle: A Walk Around the World’s Most Complicated Border
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About the Tour
About the Tour
Baarle is Europe’s most peculiar border town, where national boundaries form a mind-bending patchwork of territories. On this walking tour, you’ll explore a place where borders run through living rooms, where shop floors are divided by nationality, and where you can stand with one foot in the Netherlands and the other in Belgium – all while barely moving.
Starting at the Visit Baarle tourist office, you’ll learn how this town evolved into a jigsaw puzzle of 22 Belgian enclaves inside the Netherlands, plus Dutch enclaves inside Belgian enclaves. You’ll weave through streets where borders marked by white crosses slice through doorways and shops. Along the way, you’ll find out how two countries with different laws, customs, and quirks have learned to coexist in this geographical oddity that’s been eight centuries in the making.
As you crisscross borders dozens of times, you’ll hear stories about smugglers who exploited the porous boundaries, a building with a Belgian apartment floating above Dutch territory, and a woman who moved her front door to remain Belgian. The tour ends at De Grenspaal, a border post that commemorates the complex history of this European anomaly.
On this 90-minute tour, you’ll have a chance to:
- Cross through the world’s smallest enclave, a tiny patch of Belgian territory that you can traverse in just 50 steps
- Stand in a shop where the border divides the floor and, during COVID, one half was forced to close
- Visit a cultural center with two entrances, two phone numbers, and two addresses in two different countries
- See a café table that straddles the border, where you can drink Dutch beer on one side and Belgian beer on the other
- Discover a chess board that was placed directly on the border, symbolizing the friendly relations between the two towns
- Explore a Belgian town hall with a small triangle of Dutch territory inside it
- Learn how a banned Dutch film was screened by carefully placing all seats on the Dutch side of a room
By the end of this unique border-hopping adventure, you’ll understand how a peculiar place that could have been a geographical nightmare has become a symbol of peaceful coexistence.
Tour Producer
Tour Producer
Derek Blyth
I’m a writer and journalist from Scotland. But I’ve lived in Belgium for more than 30 years. Long enough to get to know the country and its secret places. As a former editor-in-chief of the Belgian magazine The Bulletin and regular contributor to brusselstimes.com, I’ve written countless articles, as well as bestselling guidebooks in the series the500hiddensecrets.com focusing on Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, and Hidden Belgium.
I’ve been leading small groups on walking tours through the streets of several Belgian cities for more than ten years. I especially like to take people to the places that no one knows about in Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp and Ypres. I love the hidden lanes, the unexpected shops, the old cafes. You can get to know some of my favourite spots by taking a look at my website mysecretbrussels.com
I created my first Voicemap tour in the relatively unknown city of Ghent, where I designed a route that would highlight unknown spots and unusual anecdotes. My next tour was shaped to show off some of my favourite spots in Brussels. Then I put together a walk in the port city of Antwerp to reveal some of the places I think make this city exceptional. I then decided to guide people around the ancient city of Ypres where reminders of World War One have marked almost every building from the mediaeval cloth hall to the city walls. My next project involved the modest Flemish city of Mechelen where the sound of church bells follows you through the streets. More recently, I've added the curious and sometimes absurd twin border towns of Baarle-Nassau/Baarle-Hertog where national frontiers run through private houses, shops and the local library.
When I'm not exploring hidden Belgium, I like to tramp across Scottish hills, take slow ferries to remote Greek islands, and swim in cold Finnish lakes.
Preview Location
Preview Location
Location 16
Bistro La Frontière
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You're coming up to a restaurant on the right called Bistro La Frontière. On the opposite side, there's Pizza Grens, or Frontier Pizza. So you can guess there's a border coming up. And there it is, marked on the pavement with a line of crosse... Read More
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Major Landmarks
Major Landmarks
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Grandma's Candy and Gift Shop
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Zeeman Baarle-Nassau
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Bistro la Frontière
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Loveren 2
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Baolse Herberg
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Foundation Cultural Center Baarle
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Gemeente Baarle-Hertog
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Den Engel
Getting There
Getting There
Route Overview
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Start locationParallelweg 2, 5111 CN Baarle-Nassau, Netherlands
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Total distance3km
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Final locationSingel 3, 5111 CD Baarle-Nassau, Netherlands
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Distance back to start location74.8m
Directions to Starting Point
The tour begins outside the tourist office Visit Baarle at Singel 1 in the Dutch town of Baarle-Nassau. There is no train station in Baarle, but there are good bus connections from nearby cities. Coming from Belgium, take the train to Turnhout, then hop on De Lijn bus 46 to Baarle-Hertog. Coming from the Netherlands, take the train to Breda, then Bravo bus 375 to Baarle-Nassau.
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Tips
Tips
Places to stop along the way
I recommend Den Engel for a coffee at the start of the walk. For local beers, De Biergrens at Molenstraat 98 stocks some 600 beers in a shop with the border running across the floor. You can also visit the taproom and shop of local Belgian brewery De Dochter van de Korenaar on Fridays and Saturdays. And if you're looking to buy local Belgian and Dutch specialities, Baarle's Specialiteitenhuis at Nieuwstraat 21 is a friendly family-run store with an inspiring selection of cheese, charcutierie and chocolates.
Best time of day
You can do this tour at any time. Baarle is a very friendly place with several good places to eat and drink at the start and end of the walk.
Precautions
Baarle is a quiet town but it gets a lot of traffic so please take care when you cross the road. And don't forget an umbrella if the weather looks like it might rain.
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