Must-see attractions in The Ardennes

  • Château de Bouillon

    The Ardennes

    Slouching like a great grey dragon high on Bouillon's central rocky ridge, Belgium’s finest feudal castle-ruin harks back to AD 988, but it's especially…

  • Bastogne War Museum

    The Ardennes

    This highly recommended modern museum takes you into the heart of WWII, with an audio guide featuring four imagined voices of civilian and military…

  • Blégny Mine

    The Ardennes

    For one of the best industrial-experience tours you'll find anywhere, don a hard hat, jump in the cage lift and descend through a pitch-black moment into…

  • Abbaye Notre Dame d'Orval

    The Ardennes

    A Cistercian monastery since 1132, Orval's abbey complex was wrecked in 1793 by anti-religious French Revolutionary soldiers. Rebuilding only started in…

  • Fourneau St-Michel

    The Ardennes

    Some 10km north of St-Hubert towards attractive Nassogne village, Fourneau St-Michel is a superb open-air museum featuring around 50 historic buildings…

  • La Chocolaterie Darcis

    The Ardennes

    Playing a 21st-century Willy Wonka, one of Belgium’s foremost chocolatiers has turned his modern factory into a superb interactive museum experience. Walk…

  • La Boverie

    Liège

    South of Liège's centre, this excellent gallery hosts many high-profile temporary exhibitions but always shows elements of its own fabulous art collection…

  • Grand Curtius

    Liège

    Splendid Grand Curtius unites four disparate museum collections in the former mansion-warehouse of a 16th-century Liège arms dealer. The building's red…

  • Église St-Jacques

    Liège

    Arguably Liège's most fascinating church, this architectural hotchpotch was founded in 1015 and retains a heavily patched-up 1170 west end whose…

  • Liège-Guillemins Train Station

    Liège

    Liège's main train station, around 2km south of the centre, is an incredible 2009 icon designed by Santiago Calatrava. Great for semi-abstract landscape…

  • Rochehaut

    The Ardennes

    The scenery west of Bouillon reaches a memorable climax at Rochehaut, where a long balcony surveys a glorious view down across a perfect river curl…

  • Abbaye de Stavelot

    The Ardennes

    The once-gigantic church of the Stavelot-Malmédy prince-abbots was destroyed in the aftermath of the French Revolution. But behind the archaeological…

  • Val St-Lambert

    The Ardennes

    One of the world's best-known glassworks in the 19th and 20th centuries, Val St-Lambert has made lead-crystal masterpieces within this former monastery…

  • Grottes de Hotton

    The Ardennes

    Hidden beneath partly wooded hills 1.7km southwest of Hotton, the Grottes de Hotton are some of Belgium’s most awesome caves. Sculpted grottoes sprout…

  • Château de Modave

    The Ardennes

    Few of Belgium’s numerous castles have an interior that beats the memorable Château de Modave. The most arresting of the well-preserved 1673 stucco…

  • Institut Zoologique

    Liège

    Built in 1888, this palatial building has a deep-eyed bust of Darwin on its central pediment, best spotted from the river-ferry as it approaches the Pôle…

  • Botrange Nature Centre

    The Ardennes

    A possible starting point for hikes, this impressive information centre 200m west of the Eupen–Bütenbach road has a big hooded fire hearth, a cafe serving…

  • Radhadesh

    The Ardennes

    About 4km west of Durbuy, the photogenic Château de Petite Somme is a 13th-century structure with appealing neo-Gothic additions. However, touring the…

  • Brasserie d'Achouffe

    The Ardennes

    Some of the Ardennes’ best beers are brewed by rapidly expanding La Chouffe ('The Gnome'). The name, and hence the cartoon figures on each label, is a…

  • Basilique des Saints-Pierre-et-Paul

    The Ardennes

    This impressive grey stone church has a netting-draped late-Gothic interior with fine 1733 oak choir stalls topped by cross-headed stags. The stag symbols…

  • Archéoforum

    Liège

    Once one of the greatest churches in northern Europe, St-Lambert’s Cathedral was demolished from 1793 in the aftermath of the Révolution Liégeoise, very…

  • Montagne de Bueren

    Liège

    Several tiny medieval passageways burrow beneath the house fronts of Rue Hors Château. Most disappear into picturesque hidden yards, but Montagne de…

  • Trésor

    Liège

    Off the closed-in cloister of Cathédrale St-Paul, the slickly presented three-level Trésor guards many artworks, vestments and chalices rescued from St…

  • Spa Story

    The Ardennes

    In a 1862 Napoleon III–style building 300m west of Spa's casino, the small but engaging Spa Story museum charts the town's history while looking at the…

  • Maison Gaspar

    The Ardennes

    This grand mansion's main collection celebrates the sculptures of Jean-Marie Gaspar and the photographs of his brother Charles. However, the biggest draw…

  • Outremeuse

    Liège

    Across the River Meuse from the city centre is the gritty urban island of Outremeuse, whose working-class residents consider it a ‘Free Republic’. Their…

  • Château de Reinhardstein

    The Ardennes

    The very picturesque Château de Reinhardstein was built in 1354 and restored to archetypal fortress appearance in 1969. Entry is by 75-minute guided tours…

  • Euro Space Center

    The Ardennes

    At Junction 23 of the E411, the solar-panel-wrapped Euro Space Center is a family-oriented mix of fun and education. You'll need at least 90 minutes to do…

  • Val-Dieu

    The Ardennes

    Iridescent dragonflies dart and hover over Monet-worthy lake scenes in the gloriously landscaped parkland of this historic rural abbey complex, dotted…

  • Château de Jehay

    The Ardennes

    Like a gingerbread fantasy, this turret-spiked 1550 castle is a fabulous confection of alternating brick and stone rising from an extensive tree-ringed…

  • Église St Martin

    The Ardennes

    St Martin’s was built from 1907 in classic Gothic style and, with its 97m spire, is Arlon’s most eye-catching building. The real attraction is its soaring…

  • Cathédrale St-Paul

    Liège

    Cathédrale St-Paul's highlights include a big 19th-century painting depicting the legend of St-Lambert's assassination, and the saint's ornate silver…

  • Fort de Huy

    The Ardennes

    The centre of Huy is overshadowed by this indomitable stone fortress, an oppressively dour triangular structure, built by the Dutch between 1818 and 1823…

  • Collégiale Notre-Dame de Huy

    The Ardennes

    From outside, this large Gothic church has an austere aspect, but inside the age-darkened walls and soaring ceilings are brought to life by almost-floor…

  • Musée de la Vie Wallonne

    Liège

    In an adapted convent-cloister building, this curious museum takes visitors on an amble through the region’s past, exploring everything from 12th-century…

  • Église Collégiale St-Barthélemy

    Liège

    This large Rhenish-style church has twin Saxon-style towers and a cream-and-cerise exterior. It houses a famous 1118 baptismal font that’s one of the…

  • Casino

    The Ardennes

    Spa had the 'world’s first’ casino in 1763, and the 19th-century incarnation here now forms part of a grand central trio of neoclassical buildings, along…

  • Musée Communal

    The Ardennes

    Huy's quaint little city museum occupies rooms set off a very picturesque 1669 cloister that's open to visitors even outside official opening hours…

  • Tour Paradis

    Liège

    At 118m, Tour Paradis is one of Belgium's tallest skyscrapers, a sleekly gleaming sail of blue glass. However, it's full of accountant-bureaucrats who…

  • Mardasson American War Memorial

    The Ardennes

    In a pretty area of woods and fields 1.5km northeast of Bastogne's Pl St-Pièrre, this large WWII memorial is shaped as a circle within a five-pointed star…

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