Walking the GR 571: A Guide to the Valleys of Legends

How to walk the first half of the GR 571, one of Europe’s finest long-distance footpaths, in stages, by train, with history at every bend

Long-distance walking in Belgium?

When people think of great long-distance walks, Belgium rarely comes to mind. The Pennine Way, El Camino de Santiago, the Appalachian Trail: these are the names that probably spring to mind. Belgium, in most people’s mental geography, is somewhere you pass through on the way to somewhere else.

This is a mistake worth correcting. Belgium is criss-crossed by approximately 40 waymarked long-distance footpaths covering around 8,000 kilometres of trails. These are managed by two dedicated voluntary organisations. Sentiers de Grande Randonnée (SGR) works in Wallonia; Grote Routepaden in Flanders. The same red-and-white markers that guide walkers across France, Spain, Portugal and beyond guide you here too, through forests and river valleys that most visitors never reach.

Among these, the GR 571 is one of the finest walks in the country. It’s officially called the Tour des Vallées des Légendes. Ten years ago, I walked the first five stages of it, mostly in winter and early spring, mostly in grey weather, and came back from every single stage wishing I could turn around and do it again. This is a complete guide to help you plan your own expedition along those same stages.

The GR system: A superb long-distance walking infrastructure

The GR network began in France in the 1940s as a project to restore the ancient network of long-distance paths. Many medieval pilgrimage routes, Roman roads, or drovers’ tracks had been disrupted by industrialisation and war. The system expanded across Europe, and by the 1950s the first Belgian GRs were being established.

In Belgium, the routes divide neatly by language. The Flemish GRs cross the flat, densely populated north. The Walloon GRs run through the hillier south, particularly the Ardennes and the valleys of the Ourthe, Amblève, Salm, and Lienne. Both use the same red-and-white waymarking system: a white bar above a red bar, appearing on trees, posts, and walls at every fork and junction.

The markers come in three forms. A straight bar means continue ahead. An angled bar (like a bent arm) means turn in that direction. A crossed bar means the wrong way: you have left the route. Once you learn to read them, they become a reliable companion. Over hundreds of kilometres on various GR routes, I can count on one hand the number of times I was genuinely unsure which way to go.

The GR network in Belgium connects with the European long-distance trail system. The GR 5, for example, runs from the Hook of Holland to Nice (some 2,000 kilometres!) passing through Flanders, Wallonia, Luxembourg, France, and beyond. The GR 571 intersects with the GR 15 near the Ninglinspo in Stage 2, a reminder that these local routes are part of a continent-wide web of walking infrastructure.

Resources: grsentiers.org (Wallonia, French) and groteroutepaden.be (Flanders, English/Dutch). Both sites carry downloadable GPX tracks for all routes.

The GR 571: Vallées des Légendes

The GR 571 is a circular long-distance footpath of approximately 185 km through the Belgian Ardennes, following the valleys of the rivers Amblève, Salm, and Lienne. It goes through some of the most dramatic and historically layered landscape in northern Europe. It starts and ends at Pont-de-Sçay near Comblain-au-Pont, at the confluence of the Ourthe and Amblève rivers south of Liège.

The route’s shape is roughly rectangular: the eastern side runs south along the Amblève and Salm valleys through Aywaille, Stoumont, Trois-Ponts, Vielsalm, and Gouvy. The western side returns north through the high Ardennes, via Lierneux, Chevron, Lorcé, and back to Comblain. The whole circuit takes experienced walkers around ten to twelve days to complete.

Why is it called Vallées des Légendes? Well, every valley on the route carries its own mythology. You have the Devil’s Mill at the Fonds de Quarreux, the witches of the Pays des Macralles around Vielsalm, the forest spirits said to inhabit the high Ardennes plateau. But the legends that most powerfully haunt the GR 571 are historical rather than folkloric. The route passes through the heart of the Battle of the Bulge landscape: through Stoumont and La Gleize, where Kampfgruppe Peiper made its last stand in December 1944; through Monceau, where the 82nd Airborne Division fought house to house in the snow; past Trois-Ponts, where American combat engineers blew a bridge and stopped a Panzer column.

The GR 571 was created from the merger of three older routes: the GR 571 (Amblève valley), the GR 572 (Salm valley), and the GR 578 (Lienne valley). The combined route was last significantly updated in 2019.

The five accessible stages: a complete guide

The full GR 571 circuit requires car logistics or considerable planning for the western return legs, which depart from the railway network. The eastern, southbound stages are different: Stages 1 to 5, from Comblain-au-Pont to Gouvy, follow the Liège-Luxembourg railway line so closely that both start and end point of each stage is a train station. This makes them entirely achievable as individual day walks, as a two or three-day weekend with overnight stops, or as a five-stage expedition requiring no car and minimal pre-planning.

Each of these five stages has its own distinct character, its own historical weight, and its own particular stretch of Ardennes landscape. Together they cover approximately 88 km and include some of the finest walking in Belgium.

Here is what to expect from each one.

How to plan your walk

Getting there and getting around

The key logistical advantage of the first five stages is the Liège-Luxembourg railway line. A single line runs from Liège-Guillemins south through Rivage (for Comblain-au-Pont), Aywaille, Trois-Ponts, Vielsalm, and Gouvy. Train times and prices are at belgiantrain.be. A weekend day return from Brussels to anywhere on this line costs very little, and with a Rail Pass it costs considerably less.

One practical note: the connection at Liège-Guillemins from Brussels can be tight. Check timetables carefully and allow extra time, especially for the Rivage branch.

There is no railway station at Stoumont, which is the overnight stop between Stages 2 and 3. You will need to arrange accommodation locally and either continue on Stage 3 the next morning or arrange a taxi back to the line. This is the only stage boundary on the southbound route that requires pre-planning for transport.

Doing it in stages

The first five stages divide naturally into several combinations depending on how much time you have:

• One day: Stage 1 (Comblain-au-Pont to Aywaille) or Stage 3 (Stoumont to Trois-Ponts) or Stage 5 (Vielsalm to Gouvy) each work well as standalone day walks, bookended by train stations
• A weekend: Stages 1 and 2 work as a two-day walk with an overnight in Aywaille or Stoumont. Stages 4 and 5 also work well together, overnighting in Vielsalm
• Three days: Stages 1, 2, and 3, overnighting at Aywaille and Stoumont; a proper mini-expedition through the most geologically and historically varied part of the route
• Five days: The full southbound arc, Comblain-au-Pont to Gouvy, 88 km, five stages.

When to walk

April to October is the recommended walking season, and April/May is particularly fine: the dawn chorus in the Ardennes forests is extraordinary, spring wildflowers line the paths, and the rivers are running full after the winter snowmelt. The Chefna valley on Stage 2 is most beautiful (and most challenging) at this time of year.

Summer weekends can bring crowds to the more accessible spots, particularly the Ninglinspo and the area around Coo, but the GR 571 itself is never heavily trafficked. Most of the route, most of the time, is quiet forest and empty meadow.

Winter walking is possible on Stages 1, 4 and 5, which have less technical terrain. Stages 2 and 3 – particularly the Chefna footbridge crossings and the steep climb above Coo – are better avoided in icy conditions.

What to bring

• Waterproof hiking boots: essential on Stages 2 and 3; recommended throughout
• Waterproof jacket: the Ardennes weather changes quickly and the ridge sections are exposed
• Trekking poles: strongly recommended for the Coo ascent on Stage 3 and the Chefna crossings on Stage 2
• Food and water for the day: most stages have no supply points between start and finish. Stock up at the baker’s in Vielsalm, at the shops in Aywaille, or at the café in Coo
• Downloaded GPX track: the waymarking is excellent throughout, but a GPS backup is reassuring on the exposed plateau sections and where the route passes through unmarked forest junctions
• The official Topo-guide: available from grsentiers.org (French only, but the maps and symbols are self-explanatory). The topo-guide is also the authoritative source for route amendments: check the SGR website before each walk for any changes

Accommodation on the GR 571

There are accommodation possibilities in the key overnight towns along the southbound route. Below I indicate their approximate positions on the trail:

• Aywaille (after Stage 1): well-served with guesthouses and B&Bs; train station on the Liège–Luxembourg line
• Stoumont (after Stage 2): limited accommodation; booking ahead is essential. Airbnb options exist in the surrounding villages
• Trois-Ponts (after Stage 3): pleasant small town with several accommodation options; railway station
• Vielsalm (after Stage 4): the main town of the Salm valley, with the fullest range of accommodation, restaurants, and shops on the route; railway station
• Gouvy (after Stage 5): smaller town at the end of the accessible railway section; guesthouses available near the station

Alternatively, scan the QR code below to access accommodation possibilities in the area:

What makes the GR 571 worth walking

Most long-distance paths have one or two things they’re known for: a particular landscape, a section of coastline, a famous monastery. The GR 571’s claim is more varied, and for that reason harder to summarise.

The geology is extraordinary. At the Fonds de Quarreux, you walk beside two-metre quartzite boulders; among the oldest rock in the Ardennes, transported by glacial ice during the Pleistocene. They fill the Amblève riverbed for a kilometre and a half. In the forests above Salmchâteau, you walk above deposits of coticule, a whetstone found nowhere else on earth, whose garnet crystals sharpened the blades of barbers in nineteenth-century Nairobi and London alike.

The history is ever-present. Every stage carries some trace of December 1944. For example, a memorial plaque, a rusting marker, a village name that appears in the after-action reports of American infantry regiments. Stoumont, Monceau, Cheneux, La Gleize, Trois-Ponts: this is the landscape of the Battle of the Bulge’s northern flank, and walking it slowly, at ground level, in winter weather that is not so different from the weather of that winter, makes the history vivid in a way that no museum quite manages.

The medieval layer sits beneath the modern one. The Counts of Salm ruled this valley for four centuries. Their château ruins still stand at Salmchâteau. The monks of the Abbey of Stavelot diverted the Amblève to power a mill and in doing so created the Coo waterfall. William of Orange’s garrison occupied a castle above the Amblève in 1577 and was destroyed by the Spanish the following year.

And then there is the walking itself. River valleys that alternate between exposed ridge walking and deep enclosed forest. The dawn chorus in April. A stoat on the path above Vielsalm. The Hautes Fagnes plateau in late March with snow on the ground and the cloud sitting a hundred metres overhead. The moment after the Chefna climb when the trees thin and the moorland opens up and the sky goes enormous.

Belgium, it turns out, is exactly the place to think of when you think of long-distance footpaths.

A final word on the GR 571

I set off on Stage 1 of the GR 571 one Sunday morning in early March 2016, with a 1970s rucksac on my back that Liz reckoned belonged on the Antiques Roadshow. I walked in grey weather, through frozen fields, up hills that had not read the description ‘moderate.’ I dropped my camera on a rock and it shattered. I spent a night in the coldest caravan in the history of camping. I barely saw a ray of sunshine.

I loved every minute of it.