The GR5 in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Lorraine, the Vosges, and the Jura.

I have personally walked only some small sections of the non-Alpine GR5 – in the Vosges. For that reason I offer no advice on routes or tourist sites.

Maps are impractical:

It is completely impractical to use small scale hiking maps (1:25,000) for a week or longer hiking trip on the GR5 (though such maps may be useful when you want to explore a small region not included in a trail guide). For example, the GR5 through Alsace requires four IGN maps costing a total of €48, while the trail guide costs about €16 and takes up less space. For Lorraine, even though a trail guide does not exist, small scale maps are impractical. The cost for the 10 needed maps exceeds €100.

Use Trail Guides when they exist:

The maps found in trail guides are much more convenient than any other options, and together with the other information in them, they allow not only navigation, but also the planning of overnight stops. The trail guides for the entire non-Alpine, non-Lorraine GR will cost you about €80 (2017), plus shipping costs if you don’t buy them in stores along the way. The guides are written in Dutch and French, so I have compiled lists of the basic geographic and directions found in the guidebooks and their English equivalents: See here for Dutch. See here for French. For more complete vocabulary lists, purchase pocket dictionaries or use Internet translation apps. A discussion of the guides follows.

Netherlands GR5 Trail Guide:

Lange Afstad Wandelpad 5.1/GR5: Kustpad – Deel 1: Sluis – Hoek van Holland, Hoek van Holland – Bergen op Zoom. ( “Long Distance Walking Trail 5.1/GR5. Coastal Path Section 1, etc.). This trailguide covers both the southernmost part of the Netherlands coastal walking trail (which in part is also the GR5, and the separate part of the GR5. The GR5 in the Netherlands starts at Hoek Van Holland and continues to Bergen op Zoom. Written in Dutch, it was published in 2014, and costs €16.90. It’s available at webshop.wandelnet.nl, bookstore piedaterre.nl and other Netherlands bookstores. This part of the GR5 runs in a southwesterly direction along or nearby the Netherlands coast, and then southeasterly to the Belgian border.

This trail guidebook, as well as the subsequent guidebook for Belgian Flanders, gives directions for the trail in both directions on each page: For example, page 105 covering Bonnelaan – Hoek van Holland Haven, gives directions starting from Hoek van Holland on the lower part of the page, while a column on the right side of the page has photos from the route and information about sights.

Thus GR5 walkers will read at the bottom half of each page, starting with page 105 (map 34) and continuing backwards through the book until page 73 (map 23) (a costal walk of 50.5 km), then continue on the top half of the pages from page 109 (map 13 gray) to page 137 ( map 25 gray) (an inland walk of 53.3 km). The maps are very clear, 1:25,000, showing ANWB signpoasts, and places to eat. No information on lodgings is included. An average walker could easily cover the 100 kms within five days or a week.

Belgian Flanders GR5 Trail Guide:

It is important to understand that there are two parts of Belgium – Dutch speaking Flanders in the north; and French speaking Wallonia in the south. Each tends to treat the other as a separate country. Thus, there are two different GR5 guidebooks — one for each area.

The Netherlands mainly lies to the north of Flanders, but  at its eastern edge it juts south around Flanders and abuts Germany to the east and Wallonia to the south.  This 15 mile wide strip contains the important city of Maastricht. The GR5 first runs in Flanders then near Maastricht, then back into Flanders near the border of Wallonia. The Flanders GR5 trail guide covers all of this.

For Wallonia, the GR5 trail guide Nordzee – Middellandse Zee – Deel Vlanderen (GR5 – North Sea to the Mediterranean Sea – Flanders Section) (2017) covers the GR 5 from Bergen op Zoom on the Netherlands border to Eben Emael at the border of France.  It is available from the publisher,  http://www.groteroutepaden.be/nl/product/12/nieuw/gr-5-noordzee-middellandse-zee—deel-vlaanderen.html, and also from the above mentioned Amsterdam bookstore and other bookstores. Price € 18.

This 190 page trailguide to the GR5 is full of photos and commentary on tourist sights. Its 54 maps 1:25,000  cover the 246 km route to the border of Wallonia, with indications of cafés, food shops, picnic tables, and so on. Overnight stops are suggested, usually 18 to 21 kilometers (11 to 13 miles) apart, but no lodging information is included. On parts of the trail where dogs are not permitted, alternative dog-friendly routes are shown.  The top half of each map description page is for walkers from northwest to southeast, the usual direction of walking the GR5, while the bottom half of the pages, in reverse page order, covers the opposite direction.

Belgian Wallonia and Luxembourg GR5 Trail Guide:

The guide book Mer du Nord – Mediterranée – Wallonie et grand-duché de Luxembourg (North Seas – Mediterranean – Wallonia and Luxembourg) covers the GR 5 from Flanders to the border of France. It can be purchased from from the publisher, Les Sentiers de Grand Randonner in Belgium: grsentiers.org for €€16.00, or for a slightly higher price from the groterroutepaden.be site above (the title on that site is shown in Dutch but the book is in French). This part of the GR5 runs mainly south-southeast.

In French, this 160 page GR5 guidebook is written for walking from North to South (as are all the subsequent GR5 trail guides). Points in the description are numbered, but the maps are in the back of the book, and they are only 1:50,000 (although printed at very high resolution), making them less useful for navigation. Fortunately, as elsewhere, the GR5 route is well marked. The maps have information on sights, cafés, markets and various types of accommodation. A large section gives phone numbers and addresses for all types of accomodation, from hotels to campings. There is also a listing of trains and buses. The total walking distance in Wallonia and Luxembourg is 360.6 kms, perhaps an 18 day to three week walk.

The GR5 in Lorraine, France

I cannot locate any current guidebooks for the crossing of France, from the border with Luxembourg to the Vosges mountains of Alsac. The 2009 Topoguide for Lorraine is out of print (2020) and used copies sell for nearly €200. I do provide, below, information about online maps of the GR5 route in Lorraine.

This part of the GR5 runs south-southwest until almost Nancy (the capital city of Lorraine) and then turns east and then southeast until the border with Alsace.  As the crow flies, it is only about 130 km from the Belgian border to crest of the Vosge Mountains. Walking on the circuitous GR5 takes very roughly 310 km.

The GR5 in the Vosges Mountains (Alsace):

The GR5 heads due south in Alsace. The FFRP boutique.ffrandonnee.fr sells the French Topoguides for the GR 5 through Alsace, and through the Jura to Lake Geneva (Lac Leman) (and for the Alpine crossing), as do many bookstores in France such as Au Vieux Campeur in Paris and Amazon.fr.

For Alsace, the trail guide (Topoguide) (in French) is called Traversèe du Massif des Vosges (The Traverse of the Vosges Mountain Chain) – 185 pages. Coverage of the GR5 portion of the traverse starts on page 85, and goes from north to south. Like all recent Topoguides it has 1:25, 000maps with detailed information on walking times and distances between points, information on lodgings and caf’és and food shopping, and viewpoints. Price €15.39.

It takes about 70 hours from the start at the Col d’Engin, massif du Donon, to the end at Fesches le Chatel, not counting any stops, to walk the 282 kilometers — thus at least ten days, or more likely, 15 days, if you take some rest days and sightsee.

The GR5 in the Jura:

The trailguide for this part of the GR5 is called La Grande Traversèe du Jura…à pied (The Grand Traverse of the Jura…on foot) (185 pages). Price: €15.39. This book covers several GRs. Coverage of the GR5 begins on page 113, at Nomay, slightly overlapping the coverage of the Vosges book, then after page 119, joins the coverage of the Grand Traverse of the Jura (GTJ) on pages 39 through 83. However the GR5 and the Jura Traverse Trail diverge here and there, and the GR 5 eventually branches off., The segment to Nyon (on Lake Geneva) on pages 165 to 167. Diverrgences are also covered in separate sections. Total distance of the GR5 in the Jura is roughly 280 kilometers, so roughly 70 hours of actual walking time will be needed, perhaps requiring two weeks.

The main part of my site covers the GR5 trail guides needed for the traverse of the Alps here.

The total walking distance from Holland to Lake Leman, by my approximate calculation, is 1,521 kilometers (945 miles). Walking time, not including rest days, at 20 kilometers per day: 76 days or about two and one-half months.

GR5 Maps on the Internet

I have searched through a long list of phone applications for something suitable for on the trail navigation, to no avail. The only exception to this could be for Flanders on the wandelnet.nl (in Dutch).

Interactive internet maps for the entire route, using Open Street Maps cartography, are available for the entire GR5. The easiest way to access these is on the site page hiking.waymarkedtrails.org. Entering GR5, and perhaps a region, in their search box, will access the entire trail. You can view the route at any level of enlargement. (See “Reference” below for links to the actual Open Streets Maps.)

These sites, as all browser mapping sites, require many screens, and extensive use can quickly drain your phone battery. As a strategy, therefore, I think that one should rely upon way-marks and signs along the GR5, and use the Internet maps only for planning, for a daily overview, or if one is lost or needs to find services near the route.

I believe, however, that guidebooks are worth it, whenever available, for their easy to read maps and for their listings of of services.

Reference — Open Street Map relatioms for many parts of the GR5

You can use these instead of the waymarkedtrails site, if you prefer.

Nederlands kust pad deel 1: http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/1757323

http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/3020780

Belgian Flanders: http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/3228570…3121667

Wallonia: http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/3228573#map=14/50.6024/5.7257&layers=N

Luxembourg: http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2790499

Lorraine: http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2029679#map=16/49.2656/6.3469

Alsace (Andlau south): http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/3228570 No link for the first part of the GR5 in the Vosges.

Jura http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6095322

Alpine Traverse http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2704286#map=15/44.2523/6.9283&layers=N

Other information on the Internet

From the site groteroutepaden.be in Antwerp,Belgium you can download gps coordinates for the above section: http://www.groteroutepaden.be/en/getfile/GR5170529_16129.gpx/bestand.html

For a list of GPS waypoints and photos of almost the route, see the site (in Dutch) gr5.info. This site, the creation of Iwan Oprins, details the stages of his walks on the totality of the GR5 between 2001 and 2009. I do not know if his waypoints are sufficient, together with signs, to guide a GR5 trip. His photos — though unflattering (fuzzy, dark and undersaturated, — do give an idea of the terrain and scenery of almost the entire GR5. The GPS waypoints and the photos are organized by each day of walking (83 days to Lake Leman, 1 day to cross, 45 days to Nice).

Vocabulary for the Dutch -Flemish GR5 Trail