Liège
Penta have done a miraculous job transforming a ghastly 1960s office building into the city's most fashion-savvy hotel. Arrive at night for the full effect of the Vegas-ready cocktail-bar with Hollywood lamps, candlelit tables, bare-brick wall fragments and at least five disco balls. Bartenders double as receptionists.
Once you're inside one of the 105 mostly large rooms you won't be able to see the ugly facade. On-site parking costs €15.
24.52 MILES
It’s impossible to overestimate the significance of Aachen’s magnificent cathedral. The burial place of Charlemagne, it’s where more than 30 German kings…
15.22 MILES
Built above and around the shrine of St Servaas (Servatius), the first bishop of Maastricht, the basilica presents an architectural pastiche whose…
7.53 MILES
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…
12.97 MILES
Playing a 21st-century Willy Wonka, one of Belgium’s foremost chocolatiers has turned his modern factory into a superb interactive museum experience. Walk…
0.86 MILES
Splendid Grand Curtius unites four disparate museum collections in the former mansion-warehouse of a 16th-century Liège arms dealer. The building's red…
24.48 MILES
Aachen's cathedral treasury is a veritable mother lode of gold, silver and jewels. Of particular importance are the silver-and-gold bust of Charlemagne…
23.23 MILES
One of Europe’s largest open-air museums, Bokrijk Openluchtmuseum offers a nostalgic look at Flanders’ past, with over 100 old buildings originally…
0.46 MILES
Arguably Liège's most fascinating church, this architectural hotchpotch was founded in 1015 and retains a heavily patched-up 1170 west end whose…
0.33 MILES
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…
0.35 MILES
Off the closed-in cloister of Cathédrale St-Paul, the slickly presented three-level Trésor guards many artworks, vestments and chalices rescued from St…
0.35 MILES
Beside the St-Lambert bus stops is this cartoonesque figure piloting a little metal aeroplane: Liège’s mascot and oldest ‘citizen’, the big-nosed wooden…
0.38 MILES
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…
5. Former Palace of the Prince-Bishops
0.4 MILES
Behind an Italian Renaissance facade, this former palace is reputedly one of the largest secular Gothic buildings anywhere in the world. Prior to 1789 it…
0.46 MILES
Arguably Liège's most fascinating church, this architectural hotchpotch was founded in 1015 and retains a heavily patched-up 1170 west end whose…
0.48 MILES
At night the 1719 city hall glows lugubriously in its blood-red spotlights. By day it commands Liège’s charming, if modestly sized, original main square,…
0.55 MILES
In an adapted convent-cloister building, this curious museum takes visitors on an amble through the region’s past, exploring everything from 12th-century…