In the extreme southeast of the Netherlands, near the town of Vaals, rises the country's highest hill, the Vaalser Berg (321m/1,053ft). Here, at the Drielandenpunt, the "Three Countries Point", where the frontiers of the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany meet, there are fine views of the foothills of the Ardennes, the Eifel hills and the Limburg mining area. Surrounded by free imperial territories, this was in the past a place of refuge for Huguenots, Mennonites and Calvinists.
In 1992 Europe's largest maze was laid out at the point where Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands meet. The British landscape architect Adrian Fisher planted some 17,000 hornbeams to form a labyrinth of paths, nooks and narrow lanes. At the center of the maze stands a pavilion (with a viewing platform) from which flies the flag of the European Union.
Vaals has a brick-built Lutheran church of 1737 which is now a cultural center, with fine Roccoco stalls once occupied by the Clermont family, prosperous cloth merchants in Vaals in the 18th century.
At Raren, to the west of Vaals, is a house belonging to the Clermonts, a prosperous 18th century family. Vaalsbroek was built in 1761 on the ruins of an older house of 1516.
Lying 5km/3mi northwest of Vaals is the village of Viljen, with St Martinuskerk, a neo-Gothic hall-church of 1864. Situated at an altitude of 195m/640ft, it is the highest church in the Netherlands.
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Raren - Vaalsbroek, Netherlands
