Baraque Michel, Inn and summit in the High Fens, Jalhay, Belgium.
Baraque Michel is an inn of two connected buildings on the High Fens plateau at 674 metres. The left building has a white-painted brick lower facade and a stone upper section under a steep orange-red tiled roof, with black lettering reading "Relais Brasserie" above "Fagnard Michel". A lower stone wing with a dark wooden upper band and a covered entry adjoins it.
Michel-Henri Schmitz, a tailor from Sinzig on the Rhine, settled as a day labourer near Jalhay and opened the first shelter around 1811–1813, east of today's building. His family rebuilt it before 1819 and moved it to the present site, probably in 1854. From 1856 the inn served as a relay for the Prussian mail coach until 1886; a fire destroyed the building in 1889 and it was rebuilt on the same spot.
The name comes from Michel-Henri Schmitz, a tailor from Sinzig who settled here as an innkeeper around 1811–1813. From 1827 a bell inscribed "Sancte Petre, ora pro nobis – 1589" hung on the facade and was rung in fog to guide lost travellers; the present bell is a copy, the original "Cloche des Égarés" is in the Verviers museum.
The location sits on an exposed plateau and can be windy and wet, so bring weather-resistant clothing when visiting. Several walking trails start from here and branch out through the protected natural landscape, making day hikes possible in all directions.
A memorial cross on the grounds honors a young woman who lost her life during a storm in 1860. This remembrance marks a stark reminder of how treacherous conditions once were for anyone traveling through this region.
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