28°C mercury, caravans and motorhomes, flip-flops and bermudas: it floated like a holiday air, Sunday, on the Berchem area, along the A3, for the traditional crossover between Julyists and Augustians . The crowds and queues at the pumps, self-service, toilets, do not alter the relaxed atmosphere. For Véronique, who came down from Huy, Belgium, with her three children and a friend, on her way to the south of France, “it’s the ideal stopover, almost obligatory, following 2h30 on the road and at lunchtime” .
Without forgetting the full tank of fuel, even if the advantage was limited. “We’ve been stopping here for 40 years,” say Adelin and Cathy, from Incourt, Belgium, “we don’t even check the price.” Without forgetting the attractiveness of tobacco, discovered by Alice, Lucie, Salomé and Charlotte, four girlfriends from Lille who “did not know this station, or even Luxembourg”, and left with several cartridges under their arms. The young Dutch Jan (9), Amara (6) and Roos (2), have fun in the playground, while the Bernese mountain dog Léa quenches her thirst and fills up on freshness. For them, for the space of an hour, the Berchem area has turned into a foretaste of the holidays.
In the sense of returns, also it was the big crowd this weekend. The Berchem station thus recorded around 7,000 transactions on Saturday.