Blink and you’ll miss Drielandenpunt, high note of Europe-sans-borders

You might have thought Europe would make a big deal out of the handful of places on the continent where the borders of multiple countries meet. After all, the foundational goal of the European peace project is ever closer union and nothing better demonstrates being joined together than borders sans barriers, guards or checkpoints.

So it is with Drielandenpunt, one of supposedly seven or so points in the European Union (EU) where many borders converge.

Drielandenpunt is literally Dutch for three-country point. In German, it is Dreiländereck and in French, Trois Frontières or Trois Bornes (three border stones). It’s the point where Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands meet. A great advert one would’ve thought for the European project, especially as it’s right near Aachen, a city that has deep and abiding personal experience of Europe’s major wars.

So, Drielandenpunt is a great advert for peace…if you can find it.

There are several invisible barriers.

First, it’s not advertised. If you’re new to Aachen and haven’t done your research, you wouldn’t know Drielandenpunt existed and that too, just a short bus ride away from this city in west Germany. Straight on the #350 from the H3 stop at the Elisenbrunnen in Aachen. The bus will be headed for Maastricht but you exit at Vaals in The Netherlands, some 16 minutes (and three stops) away from Aachen.

Second, Drielandenpunt’s location remains something of a mystery even when you know that’s where you want to go. When you exit the #350 at the stop named Vaals bus station, you wouldn’t know to head back in the direction from which you came for a couple minutes, turn right at the Outlet store and start up the hill. Drielandenpunt has not been signposted.

This problem continues well past Viergrenzenweg, the street that winds up the hill for just under five kilometres. There were several points at which we thought we were at journey’s end:

• At the sign that said Drielandenpunt with an arrow pointing left (when we had to continue straight for a long ways yet)! (photo 1, below)
• At the Wilhelminatoren, a modern building that offers a “sky walk” (closed the day I visited), with a shuttered café and three slightly scruffy flags of the three countries (photo 2, below)
• At De Bokkerijder, a restaurant a few minutes from the Wilhelminatoren, which also had three tall poles with the flags of the three countries (photos 3 & 4, below)

It was only on account of the generosity of random strangers – a man who travelled from Aachen with us and got off at Vaals; another raking leaves in the wood across from the Wilhelminatoren and the waiter at De Bokkerijder, that we were able to find Drielandenpunt and do the silliness expected from the tourist of straddling two (or three) countries at the same time.

Finally, Drielandenpunt itself wears the slightly tired air of an amusement park that no longer sees much point in being a source of delight. It doesn’t feel much like a celebration of Europe-without-borders (last photo below).

That said, some might say the ultimate goal of a borderless continent is reached when you no longer find it unusual enough to celebrate, to signpost and to sell.