The ultimate guide to the more than five famous Belgians A ... Belgians.pdf · Brussels According...

The ultimate guide to the more than five famous BelgiansA journey across Brussels & the South of Belgium – Episode 1

Rue St André, Brussels © Jeanmart.eu/belgiumtheplaceto.be

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the Belgian Tourist Office - Brussels & Wallonia. All information correct at time of going to press. The Belgian Tourist Office - Brussels & Wallonia accepts no responsibility for any loss, injury or

inconvenience sustained as a result of information contained in this guide. © Belgian Tourist Office - Brussels & Wallonia November 2010.

When a Belgian arrives in the UK for the first time, he or she does not necessarilyexpect the usual reaction of the British whenthey realise they are dealing with a Belgian:“You’re Belgian? Really?... Ha! Can you namemore than five famous Belgians?.” When wethen start enthusiastically listing some of our favourite national icons, we are againsurprised by the disbelieving looks on thefaces of our new British friends.... and weusually end up being invited to the nextgame of Trivial Pursuit they play with theirfriends and relatives!

We have decided to develop from whatappears to be a very British joke a means of introducing you to our lovely homeland.Belgium can boast not only really fascinatingfamous characters, but also genius inventorswhose revolutionary inventions changed theworld forever.

The Famous Belgians we are introducing to you in this booklet are the first (almost)random selection from a long list we will be

delighted to complete in the near future(hence Episode I in the title). We Belgians are a colourful, slightly surreal people. We invented a literary genre (the Belgian strip cartoon) whose heroes are brilliantambassadors of our vivid imaginations and of who we really are. So, with this Episode 1of Did you say Famous Belgians!? and, bypresenting our national icons in the context of the places they are from, or that betterillustrate their achievements, we hope toarouse your curiosity about one of Belgium’sgreatest assets – apart, of course, from ourbeautiful unspoilt countryside and towns,riveting lifestyle, great events, delicious foodand drink, and world-famous chocolate andbeer - : our people! We hope that the bookletwill help you to become the ultimate well-informed visitor, since... for those in the know,Brussels and Wallonia - the South of Belgium– are the places to go!

For more information on Brusselsand Wallonia, please visitwww.belgiumtheplaceto.be

Front cover image: The Walloon’s fresco - Namur City Hall - Painted by L’Atelier Cité de la Création

© Jeanmart - belgiumtheplaceto.be

Brussels

According to legend, Brussels was founded in AD 79 as a Roman settlement on an islandin the River Senne. A town grew up around thefortress and its position at the crossroads ofEuropean trading routes ensured thedevelopment of Europe’s largest market forcloth and luxury goods.

The city outgrew its walls already in the 13thcentury and the present boulevards show thelimits of the new town as it spread. Skilledcraftsmen made the city a trade centre.Monumental buildings from the 13th centurysuch as cathedrals bear witness to the goldenera. From that period on, Brussels would beone of the most successful towns in the Duchyof Brabant, especially renowned for her fabricsand tapestry industries.

In the 1430s, Brussels became the capital of Burgundy (allied to the King of England),giving the city an unprecedented rank on the geopolitical map of that time.

In 1695, the French king Louis XIV attackedthe city and destroyed over 4000 houses,including the Grand Place, which would bequickly and flamboyantly rebuilt as a defyingstatement to the French ruler.

The 18th century marks the beginning ofAustrian rule over Brussels after the Utrechtpeace treaty ended the War of the Spanishsuccession between France and Austria withits allies. The city was rebuilt and came backinto flourishing business.

Brussels became the capital of Belgium whenit gained independence from the Netherlandsin 1830. In the nineteenth century, the crisisin agriculture and rapid industrialisation sawthe city’s population explode, reaching 2.5million by 1939. The city’s wealthy middle-

classes commissioned spectacular buildingsand other works of art from innovative artistsand architects, and the city became a centreof Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Surrealism. After1945, a decline set in, and the population fellto under 1 million in the 1980s. Today manyparts of the city are being gentrified and itspopulation is rising again, boosted by thepresence of many of the institutions of theEuropean Union, which has attracted manyinternational organisations to the city. Brusselshas also become a leading venue for businessand academic conferences and trade showsas well as a transport hub, served by twointernational airports and with high-speed raillinks to London, Paris, Cologne andAmsterdam.

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Don’t miss...The Grand’Place (the world’s most

beautiful stage according to Cocteau), the upper town Art Nouveau district of

Ixelles and Uccle, the Ixelles Ponds, theSablons, the antiques and flea market

district of the Marolles, the hip and trendyDansaert District, the boho Châtelain andthe Congolese Matongué area in the laid

back St Boniface districts, the bubbly St Jacques area. Also the Magritte,

Natural Sciences and Musical Instrumentmuseums, the BOZAR, the Cantillon

Brasserie or the Delirium café and its2010 beers, Mini-Europe, the Atomiumand the many yearly festivals such as

the weekend long Brussels Jazz Marathon in May. For a list of the most exciting events, please visitwww.belgiumtheplaceto.be

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View of the Town Hall, Brussels - © Oliver Knight/BTO

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Jacques Brel (1929-1978)Brel was a singer-songwriter, actor anddirector. He was born in Schaerbeek inBrussels, but lived most of his adult life in Paris, and later in the MarquesasIslands in the South Pacific. He died of lung cancer in Paris and his body was returned to the Marquesas Islandsfor burial. Most of his songs were inFrench, and the quality and style of hislyrics were highly regarded by manypopular music critics from all around the world. In the English-speaking world,his songs are less well-known, althoughEnglish cover versions have beenrecorded by Scott Walker, Marc Almond,David Bowie, Sting, Dame Shirley Basseyand Dusty Springfield. Brel appeared in several cult films and wrote and starred in the French-language version of the musical “Man of La Mancha.”

Victor Horta (1861 – 1947)Horta was born the son of a Spanishimmigrant shoemaker, and was originallydestined for a career in music. However, he was expelled from the Ghent Conservatoryfor bad behaviour and so accepted an offerfrom a local builder who offered to pay for hisarchitecture studies if he would work for himafterwards. Horta proved to be a brilliantdesigner and draughtsman and won ascholarship to the Royal Academy in Brussels.He also won a prize enabling him to studyinterior design and furniture-making in Paris.On graduation from the Academy, he wasappointed an assistant to Alphonse Balat, King Leopold II’s favourite architect. He workedwith Balat on the construction of the RoyalMuseums of Ancient & Modern Art and theinnovative iron-and-glass greenhouses at theRoyal Château at Laeken, just north ofBrussels. His flamboyant house for ProfessorTassel in Brussels, completed in 1893, isusually considered as the first Art Nouveaubuilding in the world. Horta’s innovative use of iron and glass and the sophisticatedfurniture and decoration, all designed by thearchitect, created a sensation in critical circlesand was reported widely, bringing himinternational fame and influencing many otherarchitects, including Hector Guimard, CharlesRennie Mackintosh and Frank Lloyd Wright.

© Belga Pictures

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Horta went on to design many private housesin Brussels (four of which are now UNESCOWorld Heritage Sites) and elsewhere, as wellas public buildings such as hospitals, artgalleries and concert halls. During his time asProfessor of Architecture at the Free Universityof Brussels, he made changes to thecurriculums that were taken up by universitiesworldwide, contributing greatly to theprofessionalisation of architecture. He wasmade a Baron in 1932 and died in 1947. His last building, the Art Deco Brussels Central Station, was completed after his death and opened in 1952.

fashion and musical outfits. The water supplyis replaced with other liquids on manyoccasions, including milk, beer and Beaujolaiswine. The Manneken’s family of statues nowincludes the Jeanneke-Pis (a girl) and theZinneke-Pis (a dog).

Manneken-PisThis bronze statue,about 50cm high,has stood on a street-corner in centralBrussels since 1619,and has come tosymbolise theindependent spirit

of the city’s inhabitants. The first record of asimilar stone fountain on the same site goesback to 1388, when it was known as “Le petitJulien” The first reference to the statue as“Manneken Pis” is in a document dated 1452.In 1619, the current bronze statue wascommissioned by the City of Brussels from thelocal sculptor Jérôme Duquesnoy the Elder(1570-1641) and used to replace the stoneversion. The original bronze was smashed by a lunatic, its replacement was stolen by foreigntroops twice and its replacement was stolen by students in the 1960s. Today, theManneken has a wardrobe of some 800costumes, which is kept in the City of BrusselsMuseum, and looked after by his OfficialDresser. As well as many national costumes,the collection includes sporting, military,

Eddy Merckx (b 1945)Merckx is regarded as the greatest andmost successful cyclist of all time.Between 1961 and 1977, he set severalworld cycling records, some of whichremain unbroken to this day. He won theTour de France, the Giro d’Italia and theLiège-Bastogne-Liège races five timeseach, the Milan-San Remo Classic raceseven times, the Paris-Roubaix race andthe Tour of Wallonia three times each, theTour of Belgium and the Tour of Lombardytwice each, the Tour of Spain and the Tourof Switzerland once each, plus 32 otherInternational Classic races. He won theCycling World Championship four times,plus 17 six-day time trials. Following hisretirement from competitive cycling,Merckx was made a Baron and a memberof the Belgian Olympic Committee. Hecoached the Belgian national cycling teamfor a period in the 1990s. He now owns abicycle factory and is much in demand asa commentator at cycling events and anadviser on the setting-up of new events,such as the Tour of Qatar, which hasfeatured on the UCI tour calendar since2002.

© OPT- JP Remy.

© eddymerckx.be

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Plastic Bertrand (b 1954)He was born Roger Marie François Jouretin Brussels on 27 February 1954, to aFrench father and a Ukrainian mother.Aged nine, he became the singer anddrummer in the “Buffalo Scouts Band”, a pop group he formed with some friendsfrom his Scout troop, who performedcovers of Rolling Stones songs. He laterformed bands called “The Pelicans”,“Passing the Time” and “Hubble Bubble”,as well as working as a DJ for pirate radiostation Radio Veronica. In 1977, helaunched his solo career as punk singer“Plastic Bertrand” and had aninternational hit with “Ça plane pour moi”.This led to stints as the presenter oftelevision music programmes andappearances in films and musicprogrammes for children. He set up hisown record production company MMD,which released several albums for otherartists. In 1997, he was voted “MostWanted Comeback Artist” in an MTV poll,and his comeback album went platinum.He has continued touring, recording andappearing on television since.

Peyo (1925 - 1992)“Peyo” is the pen-name of Pierre Culliford,|who was born in Brussels to an English fatherand a Belgian mother. “Peyo” was how one of his English cousins pronounced “Pierrot,”|as he was known to his family. He studied artat the Royal Academy in Brussels and joinedthe CBA animation studio after graduating.Here he met the cartoonists André Franquin,Morris and Eddy Paape. His first strip cartoonsappeared in the Belgian daily press in 1950:“Johan” (later “Johan et Pirlouit”) in La Dernière Heure and Poussy in Le Soir. It was in 1950 that a “Johan et Pirlouit” stripincluded the “Schtroumpfs” (“Smurfs”) for the first time. The Walloon editor of thecartoon magazine Le Journal du Spiroupersuaded Peyo to produce some Smurfsupplements in 1960 and they were hugelysuccessful, both in their own albums and in a range of merchandised products, includingthe cult music album The Smurfs with FatherAbraham (the Dutch musician Pierre Kartner)in 1977, and a series of television cartoonsand a feature film by the American studioHanna-Barbera in 1982. The demand forSmurf material led Peyo to set up a drawingstudio in the early 1960s and he delegatedalmost all the design and drawing work to thestudio’s members, retaining an involvement in the story planning. In the early 1980s, heset up Cartoon Création SA to run what hadbecome a worldwide business. He diedsuddenly of a heart attack in 1992, but the Smurfs’ success continues.

© smurf.com

© EMI

the Brussels suburb of Berchem-Sainte-Agathe. His parents ran a floristry business,and as a boy he showed an interest inclassical music, ballet, painting and curling.His parents encouraged him to take up karatewhen he was 11, and he left school at 16 tobecome a full-time bodybuilder and martial-arts specialist. He gained his black belt aged18 and travelled to Hong Kong to meet his idolJacky Chan. He participated in professionalkick-boxing and wrestling contests. Inspired by Gold’s Gym in the USA, he opened his own“Californian Gym” in Brussels. By 1982, hehad saved up $10,000 and set off to LosAngeles to try his luck in the film industry. Hetook a number of short-term jobs, includingpizza-deliverer, carpet-fitter, chauffeur, andpersonal trainer. He managed to get a few bitparts in films and changed his surname to VanDamme. In 1988, he made his breakthroughin the film Bloodsport which was aninternational success. Further successesfollowed, including many “tough-guy” roles andsome comedies. In 1996, he directed his firstfilm The Quest for which he also wrote thescript and in which he also acted. His filmsenabled several Asian directors, including JohnWoo, to break into Hollywood. After overcominghis drug addiction, he was diagnosed withbipolar disorder in 2000. Van Damme beganto specialise in so-called “direct to DVD” actionfilms, including the Universal Soldier series.However, more recently he also proved to bean excellent comedian, in the eponym film‘JCVD’, in which,as a semi-fictionalcharacter heperformed one ofthe most movingscenes in hiscareer,establishing himas a more“serious” actor toa much wideraudience.

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Andreas Vesalius (1514 - 1564)He was born in Brussels, the son ofEmperor Charles V’s apothecary, andbegan his medical studies at LouvainUniversity in Belgium before moving to the Paris Medical School in 1533. Hequickly developed an interest in anatomy,for which he had a special talent. In1543, he published his seven-volumemasterpiece De Humani Corporis Fabrica,a treatise on anatomy, magnificentlyillustrated by a Dutch pupil of Titian. The book is now recognised as one of thegreatest scientific works ever written. In its 600 pages, Vesalius describes inminute detail the human body’s bones,joints, muscles, heart, blood vessels,nervous system, internal organs andbrain. Initially, his work met with virulentcriticism, but this soon turned to acclaimand he deposed Galileo from his pedestalto become the new authority on anatomy.His book remained the standard text onanatomy until the nineteenth century.

Jean-Claude Van Damme (b 1960)“The Muscles from Brussels,” as he jokinglycalls himself – better know to us as Jean-Claude Van Damme, or “JCVD” – was bornJean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg in © Belga Pictures

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Arlon

Arlon stands at a crossroads, close toBelgium’s borders with France and the GrandDuchy of Luxembourg. There were Celtic,Gaulish and then Roman settlements here,and the artefacts from these eras discoveredby archaeologists are displayed to visitors inthe town’s museum. The town is a regionalshopping centre, welcoming visitors to itsnarrow shopping streets, its shopping centre,its charming restaurants and its Hydrion AdepsSports Centre. From the terrace next to StDonatus’ church, where the castle of theCounts of Arlon once stood, there arespectacular views over the surroundingcountryside, which is particularly popular withwalkers and cyclists. Gourmets will love thevariety of gastronomic treats available in Arlonderived from the traditional cuisines of theArdennes, Gaume and Luxembourg regions.Local specialities include pâté gaumais (a typeof pork pie) and maitrank, a local apéritifflavoured with the herb sweet woodruff.

Don’t miss...The Archaeological Museum; the old

city centre with its large Lotharianfarmhouses; the Museum of the sculptorJean Gaspard; the Saint Donatus Hill and

its Church which dominates Arlon’slandscape; the neo-gothic Saint Martinchurch; the nature reserves; the Celtic

folk music festival (March); the refreshingMaitrank - a locally produced aperitif; andits dedicated festival; the amazing village

of Torgny and its vineyards and great local restaurants.

For more creative ideas, don’t hesitate to visit our website

www.belgiumtheplaceto.be

Arlon Town Centre © jeanmart.eu/belgiumtheplaceto.be

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Jean-Joseph EtienneLenoir (1822 - 1900)Lenoir was born in Mussy-la-Ville, nearArlon, and studied electrical engineeringin Paris. He went on to makeimprovements to the electric telegraph,and is best-known for inventing the firstinternal combustion engine, a single-cylinder, two-stroke engine fuelled by amixture of coal gas and air. The enginewas fitted into three-wheeled cars madeby Gauthier in France and Lenoir GasEngines in London. He launched a petrolengine with a primitive carburettor in1863 and fitted it in a car which he drovefrom Paris to Joinville-le-Pont (on the RiverMarne south-east of Paris) and back in 11hours. Lenoir’s demonstration resulted inan order for several cars from the Tsar ofRussia, but most of his engines poweredprinting presses, water pumps andmachine tools in factories. His designswere rendered obsolete by the rapiddevelopment of petrol and diesel enginetechnology and he died in Paris.

Arlon Town Centre © jeanmart.eu/belgiumtheplaceto.be

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Beloeil

Belœil is a town in the Belgian Province ofHainaut. Its name comes from the Picardbeuleul which means a fort or a barrier. Thetown grew up around a castle, seat of thePrince de Ligne, whose family demolished theold castle and replaced it with an elegantchâteau and extensive formal French-stylegardens in the eighteenth century. Today, the14th Prince still lives in part of the châteauwith his family: the château’s state rooms andgardens are open to the public. Among themany events held there each year are theAmaryllis Festival held in the state rooms inMay, and the “Musical Night” a large-scaleopen-air concert held in the gardens in August.Near Beloeil, at Aubechies is an open-airarchaeological museum.

Don’t miss...The Castle with its gardens and fantasticart collections; the open-air Museum atAubechies, for a trip from the Neolithic

Period to the third century AD; theMuseum of Stone and Marble; the Churchof Saint Martin; the Natural Reserve of theSea of Sand; the Musical Nights Festival

at Beloeil during the summer.

For more information, please visit ourwebsite www.belgiumtheplaceto.be

Beloeil Castle © OPT-Kouprianoff

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Baron Edouard LouisJoseph Empain (1852 - 1929)Empain was born in Beloeil, the son of aschool-teacher. He paid his own way throughhis university studies in engineering and setup a steelworks with his brother. Heanticipated, and was able to amass hugeprofits from, the enormous demand for railwayrails and rolling stock as the European railnetwork expanded rapidly. He was also an

early developer of electric railways andtramlines, and his company built the Parismetro and the tram systems in Brussels, aswell as undertaking numerous projects inChina, Africa and Russia. Disappointed by the services offered by his bankers, hefounded the Empain Bank in 1892. He alsobuilt power stations to supply many of hiselectric railways and tramways with their ownelectricity. In 1904, he travelled to Egypt tosupervise a railway-building project andbecame passionately attached to the country,purchasing 25 km2 of desert outside Cairo to build the luxury model town of Heliopolis,complete with facilities such as a horse-racingtrack, a golf course and a luxury hotel (now the Presidential palace). He was a keenamateur Egyptologist and financed severalBelgian archaeological digs and purchasedmany Egyptian artefacts for Belgian museums.He returned to Belgium at the outbreak of the First World War, where the governmentgave him the rank of General withresponsibility for the manufacture of arms for the Belgian army in France. He died inBrussels and was buried at Heliopolis.

Concert at Beloeil Castle © jeanmart.eu/belgiumtheplaceto.be

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Bouillon

Bouillon is a town in the Belgian Province ofLuxembourg. Its most famous inhabitant wasDuke Godfrey of Bouillon, who sold his duchyto the Prince-Bishop of Liège to finance hisparticipation and leadership in the FirstCrusade in 1097. Bouillon Castle occupies a strategic site high above the Semois valleyand the Duke was protector of the nearbySaint Hubert’s Abbey. In the seventeenthcentury, it was captured by the French andfortified by the great military engineer Vauban.Its fortifications were demolished in thenineteenth century and today it is theadministrative capital of the Belgian Provinceof Luxembourg and a centre for tourism.

Don’t miss...The medieval castle with its falconrydemonstrations during the summer;

the Archeoscope and the Ducal Museum;the Medieval market and Camp (April and

August); a nocturnal visit of the castle; the Abbey of Cordemois; the arboretum;the panoramic landscapes of the Giant’s

tomb at Frahan; the Witches Jumppanorama in Les Hayons.

For further tips on what to do in the area,don’t hesitate to visit our website:


Bouillon Castle © Jeanmart-OPT

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Godfrey of Bouillon (c1058-1100)Godfrey was born at Baisy-Thy, nearNivelles (in the modern Province ofWalloon Brabant). He inherited his father-in-law’s duchy and substantial lands, butwas inspired by a sermon preached byPeter the Hermit at Huy (near Liège) tosell them to the Prince-Bishop of Liègeand finance his participation in the FirstCrusade, on which he was accompaniedby his brothers Eustace and Baldwin. Thecrusader army left in 1096 and made itsway via Constantinople, Nicea and Antiochto Jerusalem, where the Saracens weredefeated in 1099. Godfrey was electedKing of Jerusalem, but, ashamed of thepillaging by the crusaders, he preferred touse the more humble title of “Defender ofthe Holy Sepulchre”. In 1100, his armydefeated the Saracens at the Battle ofAscalon, but he then fell ill and died inJerusalem after a long illness on 18July.(It is rumoured that he was poisonedby fruit sent from the Emir of Caesarea).His brother Baldwin was subsequentlycrowned King of Jerusalem on 25December 1100. An equestrian statue ofGodfrey by the sculptor Eugène Simoniswas unveiled in the Place Royale inBrussels in 1848.

Ardennes Landscape © jeanmart.eu/belgiumtheplaceto.be

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Dinant

This natural site of beauty was first occupiedby the Celts before becoming a Romansettlement on the Roman built road joiningBavay and Trier. The Prince-Bishop of Liègehad an Episcopal residence here and the townbecame part of the Principality of Liège in1070. Its main development took placebetween the 13th and 15th centuries due toits remarkable copperware industry known atlarge as “Dinanderie”. Dinant held animportant strategic position on the RiverMeuse and has thus been the site of manybattles over the years. The first major attackdates back to1466 by Charles the Bold. It wasagain pillaged and occupied in 1554 by thetroops of the Duke of Nevers andsubsequently occupied by the French between1675 and 1697 before being returned to thePrince-Bishop of Liège. It’s was during theDutch reign (1815-1830) that it became partof the province of Namur, and it has remainedsuch ever since.

It suffered bombardments and other atrocitiesduring the First – In 1914, it sustained 17sieges – and Second World Wars. Today theimposing citadel still dominates the skyline, as does the curious pear-shaped belfry of theCollegiate Church of Our Lady. Its population is less than 15,000 and its main source ofrevenue is tourism, with river cruises along theMeuse and its famous “La Merveilleuse” cavehighly popular. To celebrate its most famousson, Adolphe Sax, the town organises aninternational saxophone festival every year.

Don’t miss...La Maison de Monsieur Sax or Mr Sax’shouse - museum dedicated to this genius

inventor. The Collegiate Church of OurLady and its characteristic bell-tower; theCitadel, the spectacular Bayard rock, site

of legends but also of many historicalevents, the most recent being during theWWII battle of the bulge; the impetuous

River Less; the Abbey of Saint-Hubert; theMont-Mosan theme park; The Cave of

Dinant La Merveilleuse; the SaxophoneSundays during the summer; the Castle of

Vêves; the Annevoie Gardens.

For more information please visitwww.belgiumtheplaceto.be

Cruising along the Meuse © jeanmart.eu/belgiumtheplaceto.be

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Adolph Sax (1814 - 1894)Sax was born in Dinant and, despite being one of the greatest inventors of the nineteenth century, has largely beenforgotten today. A genius whose fertilemind generated idea after idea, he wasunfortunately the object of numerouscourt cases where his contemporariesunfairly accused him of plagiarising theirinventions. Any money he made wasspent on lawyer’s fees, and he was ruinedseveral times. Originally trained as aviolin-maker, his lasting legacy is thefamily of instruments including the sax-horn, the sax-tromba and the saxophone,nowadays seen as the most modern ofinstruments and widely used incontemporary and jazz music. However, at first, the saxophone generated littleinterest among musical instrumentmanufacturers, composers andmusicians, and Sax had to train themakers and players himself!

The pretty town of Dinant © jeanmart.eu/belgiumtheplaceto.be

HUY

Huy is a town on the River Meuse, about half-way between Liège and Namur. It has been animportant centre of river-borne commerce andboat-building for centuries, and used the riverfor the supply of raw materials to, and thedistribution of products made by, tanners,metal-founders, carpenters and silversmiths.

It was a flourishing and wealthy manufacturingand trade centre in the Middle Ages and heldits independence from its powerful neighbour,the Prince-Bishopric of Liège until 985.

The town was then part of the Prince-Bishopricof Liège until 1789.

A modern and impressive fortress was built on the site of its dismantled castle in thenineteenth century. It served as a Germanmilitary prison during the First World War and a Gestapo prison during the Second World War.

Today the town is a centre for river tourism.

The landscapes of Huy and its surroundingarea, along with those afforded by the town of Dinant, featured among some of Turner’sfavourites.

Don’t miss...The Collegiate Notre-Dame with its

prestigious treasure, The Grand Place, The Museum of Resistance and

Concentration Camps which is based in The Fort of Huy overhanging the valley,

mini-cruises on the river Meuse, the cable-car offering a wonderful panorama of thearea, The Castle of the Counts of Marchin,

and the vast number of mediaevalbuildings and bridges.

For more information, feel free to visit www.belgiumtheplaceto.be

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Notre Dame Collegiate Church in Huy © jeanmart.eu/belgiumtheplaceto.be

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Arlette de Huy (1013 - 1050)Arlette (also known as Herleva) was bornin Huy. Her father was a humble tanner,but he mother was said to be Doda ofAndenne, the estranged and abandonedgrand-daughter of King Malcolm II ofScotland.

At 16, she became the mistress of Robert the Magnificent, Duke ofNormandy, bearing him a son, William, in 1028, who, although illegitimate, wasnamed by Robert as his heir andsucceeded him as Duke of Normandy in 1035.

Arlette subsequently married twice, and two of the sons of her latermarriages, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux andRobert of Mortain, became the principalsupporters of Duke William’s successfulinvasion of England in 1066, which led to William “the Conqueror” becoming King William I of England.

John Joseph Merlin (1735 - 1803)Merlin was born in Huy and trained as aclockmaker. A rather eccentric character, hewas also an accomplished maker of stringed-instruments and organs. His imagination ledhim to adapt a pair of ice skates for use onland by replacing their blades with metalwheels around 1760, thus inventing the roller-skate. An anecdote recounts how he wasinvited to demonstrate his invention at asociety gathering in London: he skated into the room while playing a violin and promptlycrashed into a large, valuable mirror, almostkilling himself in the process (this may be the first recorded fall in the history of roller-skating). Roller-skate breaks would be addedlater.

© jeanmart.eu/belgiumtheplaceto.be

© OPT

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La Roche-en-ArdenneLa Roche-en-Ardenne sits astride the RiverOurthe 70km from Liège and 20km fromMarche-en-Famenne. The town is overlookedby its pretty mediaeval castle. High above theriver, the Diester belvedere offers visitorssuperb panoramic views of the town and theOurthe valley. The town has a rich history offolklore, which is celebrated at the BandasFestival, the Carnival and the Ghost Festival.Markets are held in La Roche-en-Ardenne andits surrounding villages, where you can buycraftwork and delicious local produce,including Pâté gaumais (a type of pork pie),Ardennes smoked ham, Ardennes pork & liverpâté and the famous local La Chouffe beer.The castle was originally built on the site of aRoman fort and became the seats of thepowerful Counts of La Roche. In the twelfthcentury, the county passed to the Counts ofLuxembourg, who gave the town a Charter andfortified it. In the seventeenth century, thecastle was captured by King Louis XIV ofFrance’s army. To improve its defences, theFrench military engineers covered itsmediaeval walls with thousands of tons ofearth. The town went into decline in theeighteenth century and the locals stole muchof the stone from the castle walls to build theirown houses. The town was briefly part ofFrance under the Revolutionary regime andthen became part of Belgium. It escapedmajor damage in the First World War, but wasseverely damaged by an American artillerybombardment during the Von Rundstedtoffensive in the winter of 1944-45, betterknown as the Battle of the Bulge. In the post-war period, the town developed as a majortourism centre.

Don’t miss...The remains of the Feudal Castle; the History of Stoneware Museum;

the Milling Museum; The Battle of theArdennes Museum; The Wild Game Park;

the Deister panorama; the White lady of La Roche Show (In Summer); kayaking

on The River Ourthe.

For more tips, please visit our websitewww.belgiumtheplaceto.be

La Roche-en-Ardenne © Flémal–OPT

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Berthe the White Lady of La RocheIn the 11th century, the Lord of La Roche-en-Ardenne had a daughter called Berthewhose beauty was famous for miles around.Her father wished to marry her off, anddecided to offer her hand in marriage to thewinner of a jousting tournament. Waleran,the eldest son of the Count of Montaigu, fellin love with Berthe at first sight. However, hewas already engaged to be married to Mariede Salm, who had him followed and noted

his frequent visits to Berthe. When Mariefound a lock of Berthe’s hair in Waleran’shat, she lost her temper and angrily brokeoff the engagement. At the tournament,Waleran defeated all his opponents and wasabout to claim Berthe’s hand when he waschallenged by a knight in black armour, whoknocked him from his horse and thus wonthe tournament and Berthe’s hand inmarriage.

After Berthe’s marriage to the Black Knight, the newly-weds were led to thenuptial bedroom. On the stroke of midnight,a dreadful scream was heard, followed by a loud splash. Berthe’s father discoveredher body in her white night-dress floating in the river with a dagger through her heart.For the Black Knight was none other thanMarie de Salm, who had sold her soul to thedevil to obtain her revenge. Having killed herrival and thrown her body into the river, shehad been dragged down to hell by the devil.Today, when the night is dark and the windhowls around the Castle of La Roche, youcan still hear Berthe’s pitiful screams andsee her ghost walk around the castleramparts before throwing itself into the river below.

Kayaking in La Roche-en –Ardenne© jeanmart.eu/belgiumtheplaceto.be

© SI La Roche-en-Ardenne

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Lessines

Lessines is a town in the Belgian Province ofHainaut that dates back to the pre-RomanSaxon era. Most of the land forming themodern town was given to Gembloux Abbey in946 AD. Its temporal Lord was the Count ofAlost, a vassal of the Count of Hainaut.

Nowadays it is well known for its open-airporphyry quarries and the medieval HospitalOur Lady of the Rose, and for being the birthplace of one of Belgium’s greatest surrealistpainters, René Magritte.

Don’t miss...The amazing Hospital of Our Lady

with the Rose and its cloister garden; The penitents’ parade; the Historical

Festivities of the Banquet of 1583; TheWatterman Park; The Brewery of Jean Tout

Seul; the Mahy car Museum with thebiggest classic car collection in Belgium;the Giant’s House in Ath; walking in the

countryside of “The Country of Hills”; the Pairi Daïza animal Park.

For a list of the most exciting events andplaces, please visit our website:


Hospital Our Lady of the Rose © Notre Dame a la Rose

René Magritte (1898 - 1967)Magritte was born at Lessines, the son of a tailor and a dressmaker. The family moved to Gilly, then to Châtelet, where René beganto study art.

His family’s financial problems forced them to move house frequently and his motherdrowned herself in the River Sambre in 1912.René and his two younger brothers were theneducated by a governess in Charleroi beforeRené won a place at the Royal Academy inBrussels.

After graduation, he worked in the studio ofthe Cubist-Futurist painter Flouquet, and thefirst exhibition of his paintings was held inBrussels in 1920.

Magritte then did his two years’ militaryservice, married and took a job as a wallpaperdesigner.

In 1924, he was introduced to the Dadaistpainters and the works of Giorgio De Chirico.In 1927, he founded the “Brussels Group” ofSurrealists, whose first exhibition was held in 1928.

From 1927 to 1930, Magritte worked in anartists’ colony at Perreux-sur-Marne in France,before returning to Brussels, where he set upan advertising agency. Further exhibitions ofhis paintings were held in Brussels (1933),New York (1936) and London (1938).

Having fled to Carcassonne following theGerman invasion of Belgium in 1940, hereturned to Brussels a few months later.

In 1948, his series of 40 gouache paintingscreated a scandal when exhibited in Paris, and he settled down to life in Brussels as asuccessful artist, fulfilling many large-scalecommissions for murals in public buildings.

His first retrospective exhibition was held in 1954.

He died of cancer at the age of 69.

In 2009, a museum dedicated to his workopened in Brussels, proving a huge success.

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© J Jeanmart - OPT

LIéGE

During the prehistoric era, a small number of people settled at the confluence of therivers Meuse and Legia, now occupied by thePlace Saint Lambert and the Prince-BishopsPalace. Much later, during the 2nd centuryAD, a vast Roman Villa was built on the samespot and a large population attracted by theproximity of the rivers settled around it. Theinhabitants became Christian believers, andthus the settlers soon built a chapel in whichLambert, bishop of Tongres-Maastricht, wasassassinated in 705. As a result, more andmore pilgrims were attracted to the place ofLambert's death. The little village grew into a town.

Liège became the centre of a vastindependent Principality – spreading fromsouthern Holland to Burgundy – whosePrince-Bishops were electors of the HolyRoman Empire. Its proximity to coal and iron-ore fields and to the River Meuse for water-power and transport led to it becoming amajor manufacturing base whose skilledminers and blacksmiths exported their know-how beyond the Belgian borders to countries like Sweden, whose Walloonsettlers created the famous Swedish steelindustry.

By the nineteenth century Liège had turnedinto the industrial powerhouse of Belgiumand the city expanded as its richindustrialists built themselves spectacularhouses and farm labourers flocked there towork in the factories. The Cockerill-Sambreconglomerate became one of the world’slargest manufacturers of railway rails,locomotives and rolling stock and other ironand steel products. Liège was also the centreof the Belgian firearms and armaments

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industry. However, competition from abroadled to the collapse of much of the region’sheavy industry after WW II, leading to massunemployment.

In the 1990’s the city council decided toreinvent Liège as a regional shopping andcultural centre, investing in high-profileprojects such as the spectacular newCalatravas railway station and the Médiacité,designed by UK-based Ron Arad. Despite allthe recent changes, the traditional rebelliousnature of the inhabitants of the city,especially of the Outremeuse district, is stillcelebrated with gusto on 15 August everyyear, along with the famous street partiesorganised by the many international studentsattracted by the highly-regarded syllabus ofthe University of Liège.

Don’t miss...The Prince-Bishops’ Palace and

St-Lambert Square, the Hors-Chateau andBurennes street staircase, the Violette

square opposite the town hall, thetreasure of the St-Paul Cathedral, the St-Jacques Basilica Church and the

St Barthélémy church. The Carré districtand its bipolar life (great shopping by day,

buzzing night clubs and cafés by night),the Curtius Museum, the Museum ofWalloon life; the Gallic Village (open

between 1 and 14 July); the ChristmasVillage and the Ardente Music Festival. Formore tips and for the most exciting events,

please visit our sitewww.belgiumtheplaceto.be

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Ambiorix (c 77BC - c 44BC)Ambiorix was Chief ofthe Eburones and theAtuatuci, two of thetribes which inhabitedwhat is now Belgiumbefore the Romanconquest (his namemeans “double-chief”). Theirferocious resistanceto the Romans gained

the tribes the nickname of “Belgae”(“warlike”). In his account of the conquestof Gaul De Bello Gallico, Julius Caesarcommented “Horum omnium fortissimisunt Belgae” (“Of all the Gauls, the Belgaeare the bravest”). Ambiorix is recorded inCaesar’s book as tricking a Roman legioninto marching into a valley in theArdennes forest where a whole legion wasmassacred by the Belgae in 54 BC. As amatter of fact, the harshest defeat inCaesar’s career was inflicted by thiscunning and brave warrior and his men.

Roman revenge was swift and bloody -eradicating almost all the Eburone people- and the revolt was brutally suppressed.However, Ambiorix managed to escapeacross the Rhine, through the thickArdennes forest that he knew so well, and died among his allied Germanictribes.

Following Belgian independence in 1830,historians promoted Ambiorix as a Belgiannational hero: an epic poem was writtenabout him in 1841, and a residentialsquare in Brussels (now near theEuropean district) was named afterhim in the 1880s.

Charlemagne (c742-814AD)Charlemagne was born in the royal palace atHerstal (near Liège), grandson to King Charles“The Hammer” Martel and son to Pepin theShort.

He became King of the Franks in 771 andexpanded his kingdom into an empire coveringmost of Western Europe. After his conquest ofmodern-day Italy, he was crowned Holy RomanEmperor by the Pope. His imperial palace andseat of government was at Aachen, in modern-day Germany. His reign saw a renaissance ofart, religion and culture, and he is often citedas the “father of Europe.”

Georges Simenon (1903 - 1989)Simenon was born in Liège. He worked as anewspaper reporter for La Gazette de Liège,before moving to Paris in 1922 to seek hisfortune as a writer. Within five years he hadestablished himself (under variouspseudonyms) as a writer of popular fiction. In1931, he published the first novels using hisown name. His creation Inspector Maigret firstappeared in a novel launched on 20 February,1931 at a huge ball (the ‘Balanthropometrique’ ) that was reported in theFrench national press and secured Simenon’spopular fame. Simenon lived in France until1945 and then moved to the USA for a

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decade, before returning to Europe andsettling in Switzerland, where he died. Duringhis career, he produced on average four or fivenovels a year, alternating between the much-loved Maigret detective novels and otherworks. He enjoyed critical and commercialsuccess, and was elected a member of theBelgian Royal Academy, President of theMystery Writers of America Association in1952 and President of the Jury at the 1960Cannes Film Festival.

Many of his novels were adapted for cinemaand became blockbusters. He was also madea member of the French Légion d’honneur.

Simenon’s estimated 450 novels and shortstories have been translated into 55languages and have sold approximately 1.4billion copies.

The pipe-smoking Inspector Maigret has alsoappeared in 55 feature films and a staggering279 television dramas, making him a familiarfigure to millions, including many who hadnever read one of the original 75 novels or 28 short stories.

Zenobe Gramme (1826 - 1901)Gramme was born in a village near Liège and moved to France to work as a cabinet-maker in the workshops ofChristofle, the silversmith.

Overcoming his lack of education andknowledge of mathematics, he inventedthe “Gramme machine” in 1869, to speedup the silver-plating of cutlery usingelectrolysis.

Unknown to Gramme, this machine wasthe first electric dynamo.

Following the intervention of HypolliteFontaine, who had noticed that thedynamo spun round when the current wasreversed, Gramme patented his machinein 1873 and it became the world’s firstsuccessful electric motor on an industrialscale, as well as the first machinecapable of generating high-voltageelectricity as a challenge to the monopolyof steam power.

Gramme died in 1901.

Statues of him were erected in Paris andin Liège, where the Training College forElectrical Engineers was renamed theGramme Institute in his honour.

© jeanmart.eu/belgiumtheplaceto.be

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André-Ernest-ModesteGrétry (1741 - 1813)Born in Liège, the son of a violinist, Grétrystudied singing and composition and wona scholarship to study opera in Romebetween 1761 and 1766. His first opera,Isabelle et Gertrude, was premiered inGeneva in 1766. He married the painterJeanne-Marie Grandon in 1771 and wenton to write more than 50 comic operas by1803. He was appointed Director of Musicto Queen Marie-Antoinette and then toEmperor Napoleon, who awarded him theLégion d’honneur. One of the arias fromhis opera La Caravane du Caire became amarching song of Napoleon’s army. Hewas appointed to the Académie Françaisein 1795 and retired to Rousseau’s formerhouse in Montmorency. His body wasburied at the Père-Lachaise cemetery inParis, but his heart was interred inside hisstatue outside the Royal Opera House inLiège.

Georges Nagelmackers(1845 - 1905)Nagelmackers was born in Liège into a wealthybanking family, whose bank had been foundedin 1747. In 1867-8 he travelled extensively inthe USA and was impressed by the luxuryPullman carriages, sleeping-cars andrestaurant-cars that were used for many long-distance railway services there. On his returnto Europe, he started to develop links with thenational rail operators, and in 1874 hefounded the Compagnie Internationale desWagons-Lits (“CIWL”) (International Sleeping-Car Company).

Nagelmackers had a fleet of luxury carriagesbuilt that were used to form complete trains orattached to other trains.

CIWL was a huge success and its long-distance express services included thelegendary Orient-Express (Paris-Istanbul), Nord-Express (Paris-St Petersburg) and Sud-Express(Paris-Lisbon).

CIWL also provided carriages for the Trans-Siberian Railway in Russia, and built luxuryhotels for its passengers, including the PeraPalace in Istanbul, the Terminus Hotels inBordeaux and Marseilles, the Hôtel de la Plagein Ostend and the Grand Hotel in Beijing. Thecompany’s glamorous reputation was boostedby the publication of Murder on the OrientExpress by Agatha Christie, a frequent travelleron the train and guest at the Pera Palace

Hotel. CIWL took over Thomas Cook in 1927and became part of the Accor group in 1991.Today the company’s name lives on inCarlsonWagonLit Travel, a business travelagency, and the restored luxury Orient Expressprivate train. The Nagelmackers Bank is nowpart of Delta Lloyd.

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Elvis Pompilio (b 1961)Born in Liège, the son of Italian immigrants, hestudied fashion design in Liege and inBrussels and set up a millinery workshop inthe Sainte-Catherine district of the city in1987. He was commissioned by leadingfashion houses, including Dior and Valentino,to design hats for their shows, and he alsoproduced one-off hats for private clients. In1990, he opened shops in Antwerp andBrussels, selling ready-to-wear hats for menand women, and was awarded the Belgianfashion industry’s Victor Award. He worksclosely with well-known designers, includingAnn Demeulemeester, Dirk Bikkembergs andVéronique Leroy. He has expanded his rangeto include spectacle frames, sunglasses,handbags and umbrellas, which are sold indepartment stores worldwide, particularly inthe USA (Barneys, Saks Fifth Avenue, BergdorfGoodman and Nieman Marcus), Japan(Takashimaya) and Europe. He opened aboutique in Paris in 1992, and, three yearslater, a second shop in Brussels and one inLondon. He designed the accessories forcollections by Chanel, Thierry Mugler, Céline,Hugo Boss and Ocimar Versolato, and some ofhis famous clients include Joan Collins,Harrison Ford, Madonna, Yannick Noah, Axelle

Red, Mickey Rourke, Amélie Nothomb, EtienneDaho, Mauranne, the Duchess of York, LadyLinley, Queen Sonja of Norway, Queen Beatrixof the Netherlands and Queen Paola of theBelgians. In 2002, he decided to close all hisshops and to concentrate on the design sideof his business. He celebrated this changewith a huge fashion show, recorded in a bookpublished by Luc Pire. Since then, Elvis’sdesigns have included a “designer can” forCoca-Cola, a range of paint for Boss Paint anda collection of terracotta vases. He is alsoinvolved in the work of the charity Dessinel’espoir (“Draw hope”). He was created anOfficier de l’Ordre du Roi Léopold by KingAlbert II in 2006. The waxwork of AmélieNothomb in the Musée Grévin in Paris wearsone of his hats, and he also provided hats forthe Louvre Museum’s exhibition L’hommeparé: du 18e au 21e siècle. He also designedthe hats that were presented as official giftsby the Belgian government to Queen Beatrix ofthe Netherlands during her state visit and bythe Province of Liège to Queen Paola of theBelgians. On 1 April 2010 he opened a newBoutique Atelier on the Grand Sablon inBrussels.

Palace of the Prince Bishops, Liege© jeanmart.eu/belgiumtheplaceto.be

© elvispompilio.com

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Louvain-la-NeuveBuilt on farmland 30kms East of Brussels, theuniversity town of Louvain-la-Neuve wascreated in the 1960’s after French-speakingstudents and teachers where requested by theFlemish political movement to leave theancient university of Leuven in Flanders. Thetransfer of students to “New Leuven” began in1972, and the new university’s medical schoolwas established in the Brussels suburb ofWoluwé-Saint-Lambert. By 1981, the residentpopulation of Louvain-la-Neuve had risen toover 10,000. The plan is for this to rise to30,000, of which 15,000 would be students. It is the only new town in Europe built solely to accommodate a university.

In 2009, the outskirts of Louvain-la-Neuve saw the opening of the Hergé Museum in an unusual building designed by the Frencharchitect Christian de Portzamparc. Themuseum has 8 rooms containing a permanentexhibition of Tintin memorabilia and a room fortemporary exhibitions. It was funded by Nickand Fanny Rodwell, the literary executors ofHergé’s estate and Directors of the HergéFoundation. Fanny was Hergé’s second wife.The land for the museum was donated by theUniversity and is only a few kilometres fromthe village of Céroux-Mousty, where Hergé hada country house. The surrounding countrysideeven inspired some of his comic strips, and inthe mid 1990s the street where his countryhouse was located was renamed “HergéStreet.” Every year the main square of Céroux-Mousty, one of the largest in Wallonia, is thesetting for an Apple festival and also the take-off point for many hot air balloons.

Don’t miss...The Hergé Museum; the Justine N1 Tennis

Club founded by Justine Henin; walks inthe Woods of Dreams; the Woods of

Lauzelle, through guided or marked tours;the Louvain-la-Neuve Museum (art and

civilisation); the biggest student event ofthe year in Europe: the “24 hour bike ride”

(in October); the shopping district in theEsplanade or the Saint-Hubert Galleries.

For more about this area, feel free to visit our website:


A squirrel in Bois des Rêves forest © OPT-JLFlemal

Hergé (1907 - 1983)Georges Prosper Rémi, better known by his pen name Hergé, was a Belgian strip-cartoon writer and artist. “Hergé” is the Frenchpronunciation of “R.G.”, his reversed initials.His best-known and most substantial work isThe Adventures of Tintin, a series of twenty-four albums which he wrote and illustratedbetween 1929 and his death in 1983, whenhe left the twenty-fourth Tintin adventure,Tintin and Alph-art, unfinished.

His work strongly influenced, and continues to influence, other strip-cartoon artists,particularly in Europe. He was inducted intothe Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2003. TheTintin stories are notable for their vividhumanism, their realism (the result ofmeticulous and wide-ranging research), and

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The Hergé Museum © Nicolas Borel Atelier de Portzamparc 2009

© Hergé-Moulinsart 2010

Hergé’s ligne claire drawing style. A museumdedicated to Hergé’s work was opened by the Hergé Foundation in a specially-commissioned building in Louvain-la-Neuve in 2009.

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Chateau de ModaveCount Jean-Gaspard of Marchin startedbuilding this extraordinary residence in 1658,on the site of a mediaeval fortress. Its designincorporates mediaeval-style towers, as well asfeatures that were completely new at the time.The interior is decorated with exceptionallybeautiful sculptures, paintings and Brusselstapestries, as well as many pieces ofeighteenth-century furniture. The château issurrounded by extensive formal French-stylegardens. In 1688, the count called inRennequin Sualem, a carpenter from Liège, to find a solution to the problem of raisingwater from the River Hoyeaux to the gardens50m above.

Sualem designed a series of connectedwooden water-wheels that accomplished thistask with such success that he wassummoned to Versailles to build a similarmachine there for King Louis XIV of France.The original machine has now been replacedby electric pumps and the château is owned by Vivaqua, the Brussels water company,which extracts water from wells on the site foruse in Brussels.

Rennequin Sualem (1645 - 1708)Sualem was born in Jemeppe-sur-Meuse(now a suburb of Liège), and qualified as a master carpenter. Around 1668, he wascommissioned by the Count of Marchin tobuild a mechanism to raise water 50 metresfrom the River Hoyoux to the courtyard of the Château de Modave. He achieved thisremarkable feat by designing an innovativeseries of water-wheels, which came to theattention of King Louis XIV of France, whosummoned him to his newly-built palace atVersailles to solve the inextricable challenge of bringing water to his water features gardensand made him Royal Engineer in charge ofproviding pressurised water for the fountainsand ponds in the palace gardens. Sualemachieved this by linking 14 of his “Modavewheels” to raise water to a height of 163m,thus providing sufficient pressure to distributeit throughout the gardens. The delighted KingLouis ennobled Rennequin and asked himwhere the idea for the machine had comefrom. Rennequin replied in his native Walloonmother tongue “Tot tuzant, sire” (“By thinkinghard, Sire”). Modave Castle © FTPL

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Modave Castle © OPT-JPRemy

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View of Collegiale St Waudru © jeanmart.eu/belgiumtheplaceto.be

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Mons

Mons was the capital of the County of Hainaut,and is today the administrative centre for theBelgian Province of Hainaut. Its location, 70kmSouth-West of Brussels, 75km East of Lille and180km West of Aachen makes it an importantcrossroads on the European motorwaynetwork. When Emperor Charles V becameCount of Hainaut in 1515, the city’s populationwas around 9,500, and included manytanners, weavers and shoe-makers. The city was besieged and captured severaltimes during the Eighty Years’ War betweenthe French and the Spanish Habsburgs, andwas the capital of the Spanish Netherlandsbetween 1580 and 1584. During an epidemicof plague in 1615, the city council asked theCity of Ghent to lend them the relics of SaintMacaire, reputed to ward off the plague. Therelics were installed in the Collegiate Church of Sainte Waudru in Mons and soon after theepidemic ended. To celebrate the city’sdeliverance, a splendid new silver reliquarywas made for the relics, which were returnedin it to Saint Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent. Thecity remained a target in the wars in the regionin the seventeenth century, falling underFrench control between 1691 and 1697 andbetween 1701 and 1713. Following itsreintegration into the Habsburg Netherlands,its fortifications were demolished. During theFrench Revolutionary period, Mons was theprefecture of the French département ofJemappes. Following Belgian independence in 1830, canals and railways were built whichboosted the city’s economy. The poet PaulVerlaine was imprisoned in Mons from 1873 to 1875 and wrote part of Romances sansparoles and Sagesse there. Mons was the

Don’t miss...The magnificent Collegiate Church ofSainte-Waudru and its treasury; TheFrançois Duesberg Decorative Arts

Museum; the St-Calixte’s Chapel, The TownHall; the Grand Place with its very ancientstatue of a diminutive monkey, symbol of

the city; the UNESCO listed belfry, thenearby Castle of Havré and its gardens,

the peaceful WWI St Symphoriencemetery; the “Doudou” annual streetfestival, a popular UNESCO listed feast

dating back to the Middle Ages.

For more, visit our website:www.belgiumtheplaceto.be

scene of one of the major battles of the First World War in August 1914, which gaverise to the legend of the “Angel of Mons” andin 1944 local residents helped the allies face a very dangerous German offensive, whichwas thwarted in the battle known as the“Mons Pocket”.

In 1967, the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Powers in Europe (SHAPE), theoperational headquarters of NATO, movedfrom Paris to Casteau near Mons. From the1980s onwards, the city has promoted itscultural heritage under the enthusiasticleadership of its mayor, Elio Di Rupo, theleader of the Francophone Socialist Party.

Mons will be the European City of Culture in 2015.

Louise of Stolberg,Countess of Albany (1752 - 1824)Louise was born in Mons, which was then inthe Austrian Netherlands. She was the eldestdaughter of Prince Gustav Adolf of Stolberg-Gedern, a well-connected, if poor aristocratwho was an officer in the Austrian Imperialarmy. After her father’s death in battle, sheand her sister were sent to Sainte Waudru’sConvent in Mons, whose nuns specialised ineducating the daughters of poor nobility.

In 1771, Louise’s sister married the son of theEnglish Duke of Berwick, whose family, underpressure from King Louis XV of France toensure the continuation of the Jacobite Stuart

Philippa of Hainaut (1311 - 1369)Philippa was the daughter of William I,Count of Hainaut, and his wife Jeanne deValois, grand-daughter of King Philip III of

France. She was born in Valenciennes, grewup in Mons, capital city of the counts ofHainaut, and was married to King Edward IIIof England at York Minster in 1328. Sheaccompanied Edward on his militarycampaigns in Scotland and Flanders. Today,she is chiefly remembered for her dramaticintervention at Calais in 1346. After a longsiege, Edward had offered not to destroy thetown if six of its leading citizens would stripto their underwear, place nooses aroundtheir necks, and come out of the town gateto surrender the keys to him before beinghanged. Philippa, who was pregnant,persuaded Edward not to execute them,saying it would bring bad luck for the child.The incident was later to inspire Rodin’smonumental 1888 sculpture The Burghersof Calais. Philippa bore Edward fourteenchildren, of whom nine survived infancy,including Edward the Black Prince and Johnof Gaunt leader of the Lancastrian faction in the Wars of the Roses. Queen’s CollegeOxford is named after Philippa. She died at Windsor and is buried at WestminsterAbbey.

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line, arranged the marriage of the 20-year-old Louiseto the 55-year-old Charles Edward Stuart, the former“Bonnie Prince Charlie” then living in exile in Rome.

For two years, Louise lived with her husband inRome. Although the couple were happy together,Louise was unable to have a child and Charlesresumed his heavy drinking.

They moved to Florence in 1774 using the titles“Count and Countess of Albany”.

In 1778, Louise began a secret affair with the Italianpoet Count Vittorio Alfieri, and left her husband twoyears later, claiming he had physically abused her.

She was supported financially by the Pope, via Charles’ brother, Cardinal York.

She obtained a legal separation from her husbandin 1784 and lived openly with Alfieri from 1786.

Her husband’s death in 1788 led to her receiving a pension from the King of France, which enabledher and Alfieri to live comfortably, first in Paris then in Florence.

In both cities she hosted literary and intellectualsalons.

Following Alfieri’s death in 1803, she lived with the artist François-Xavier Fabre, who painted a famous portrait of her in her old age.

She died in Florence and was buried in the SantaCroce Basilica Church there, not far from Alfieri.

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The Belfry, Mons © Jeanmart-OPT

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Namur town centre © jeanmart.eu/belgiumtheplaceto.be

Namur

The modern city of Namur is located on a sitethat has been inhabited since Neolithic times,63km south-east of Brussels at the pointwhere the River Sambre joins the River Meuse.Over its long history, the city has beenbesieged many times and occupied by almostall the great European powers. It gained abishop and a cathedral in the sixteenthcentury, when it was part of the HabsburgNetherlands. The area around the city was thescene of many battles during the War of theLeague of Augsberg between the Habsburgsand Louis XIV of France. Following theconquest of the Austrian Netherlands byNapoleon, Namur became the prefecture ofthe French département of Sambre-et-Meuse.After Belgian independence in 1830, Namurbecame an important administrative centre,boosted in 1986 when it was chosen as thecapital of the newly-created Walloon Region.Today the regional parliament sits in Namur

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Don’t miss...The citadel; the Guy Delforge perfumer’s

workshop; the Groesbeeck-de-CroixMuseum, a journey back in the 18thCentury, the Felicien Rops Museum

dedicated to the controversial artist of thesame name; the city centre shopping

district and its fabulous shoe shops; theriver trips between Namur and Givet;

Namur in May, a festival of travelling art;The nearby Water Gardens of the Château

d’Annevoie; the “du Bocq” brewery; theunderground caves; the Maredsous Abbey,

famous for its beer and cheese, and much more to be discovered on


and many of the regional ministries are basedthere. Regional funds have renovated many ofthe city’s historic buildings.

Namur riverside © jeanmart.eu/belgiumtheplaceto.be

Benoît Poelvoorde (b 1964)Benoît Poelvoorde was born in Namur in 1964.His father (who died when he was still a child)was a lorry-driver and his mother ran a

Cécile de France (b 1975)Born in Namur, Cecile de France showed anearly talent for acting, and started theatrelessons aged 15. Two years later, she left forParis, where she worked as an au pair (andperformed fire-eating tricks in the street) whilestudying drama with Jean-Paul Denizon. Shepassed the entrance exam for the Ecolenationale supérieure des arts et techniques duthéâtre (the French national theatre academy)in 1995 and spent three years studying at itssites in Paris and Lyon. Her studentperformances had come to the notice of the“agent to the stars” Dominique Besnehard, of the Artmedia agency, who signed her on hergraduation (and who still represents her). Herfilm career began meteorically with the role ofLaure in Richard Berry’s romantic comedy L’art (délicat) de la séduction opposite PatrickTimsit, then in Cédric Klapisch’s L’Auberge

espagnole, where she played the French-speaking Belgian lesbian student whobefriends Romain Duris. The film wasnominated for six Césars in 2002, but in theend won just one: Best Female Newcomer forCécile de France. In 2004, she made herHollywood début as Monique La Roche in theDisney remake of Around the World in EightyDays starring Jacky Chan, Steve Coogan andArnold Schwarzenegger. In 2005, she won theRomy Schneider Prize for the Best FemaleNewcomer and was Mistress of Ceremonies at the Cannes Film Festival. She worked withKlapisch on Les poupées russes, the sequel to L’Auberge espagnole, and won the 2006César for Best Supporting Actress for herperformance. In her latest role she starsalongside Matt Damon in Clint Eastwood’sHereafter, released in the US in October 2010.

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© Borde Jacovides Agence Angeli

© Regine Mahaux Contour by Getty Images

grocer’s shop. After his education at the JesuitSchool in Namur, he went to study applied artsin Brussels, specialising in acting, drawing andphotography. He played a role in a 13-minutefilm made by two of his fellow-students, RémyBelvaux and André Bonzel in 1987 called Pasde C4 pour Daniel Daniel, which was shot inBrussels and Paris. The film was well-receivedat specialist festivals, and, in 1992,Poelvoorde agreed to appear as the serial-killer Ben in Belvaux and Bonzel’s first full-length film C’est arrivé près de chez vous -Man bites dog, a « mockumentary » whichparodied the famous Belgian documentaryseries Strip Tease. To save money, the film was shot on 16mm black-and-white film andthen transferred to 35mm film when it wasselected for the Cannes Film Festival. It wasthe surprise hit of the Festival and went on to become a cult film among French-languageor world independent film fans and, accordingto Martin Scorsese would change the historyof filming for ever.

Poelvoorde’s performance led to his owncomedy sketch series on Belgian television(Jamais au grand jamais and Carnets deMonsieur Manatane) and to parts in 25 morefilms over the next 20 years, including AlainBerberain’s Le Boulet (2002) where he playedan escaped convict who teams up with hisformer guard to chase the guard’s wife whohas run off with their lottery winnings, andYann Moix’s Podium (2004) where he played a manic Claude François impersonator,reached stardom status in the French-speaking world. Poelvoorde was awarded theJean Gabin Prize for Best Actor in 2002 andwas a member of the jury (chaired by QuentinTarantino, a big fan of C’est arrivé près dechez vous [Man bites dog] ) at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.

In more recent years, he has extended his acting experience to more dramatic roles.

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Namur street © jeanmart.eu/belgiumtheplaceto.be

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Rebecq

Rebecq is a town in the Belgian Province ofWalloon Brabant, 27km South-West ofBrussels in a district of green valleys known asthe “Roman Country”. It is on the River Senne,and can date its foundation back to a Charterissued by King Charles the Bald in 877 AD. In the Middle Ages, the town came under theauthority of two feudal lords: the Lord ofTrazegnies and the Lord of Enghien. Thepowerful Arenberg family inherited theLordship of Enghien in the seventeenthcentury and did much to develop Rebecq as a centre for milling grain. In the nineteenthcentury, it was the birthplace of the brothersErnest and Alfred Solvay, who founded anindustrial company that would become thebiggest in Belgium, based on Ernest’spatented process (“the Solvay process”) for

Don’t miss...The Great Mill of Arenberg; the Porphyry

Museum; the Little Arenberg Mill; the BeerHouse; The “Iron and Fire” Mediaeval

camp and market (in August); A ride on the tourist train ; a walk to the Saint-Roch

Chapel, the nearby Park of Enghien and its rose garden (in June).

For more information on what to do in this region, visit our website


making sodium carbonate, for which manyindustries generated huge demand. TheSolvays’ birthplace is still standing in Rebecq.

The town of Rebecq © Flémal – OPT

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Ernest Solvay (1838 - 1922)Born at Rebecq, Solvay was prevented byillness from going to university, and so beganwork in his uncle’s chemical works aged 21.He used his self-taught knowledge ofchemistry to make many improvements to theprocesses used in the factory, and, in 1861,he discovered the process for manufacturingindustrial soda (sodium carbonate) that todaybears his name. In the Solvay process,limestone is mixed with sodium chloridesolution (brine) and ammonia to obtainindustrial soda much more cheaply that usingthe old Leblanc process. Industrial soda isused in manufacturing glass, steel anddetergents. Solvay patented his process in1861 and opened his first factory at Couillet in1863. Demand was huge, and his businessgrew rapidly. By 1900, the Solvay process wasused to manufacture 95% of the world’sindustrial soda, and Solvay’s business empirespanned the Atlantic, with factories in Europeand the USA.

Today, around 70 Solvay-process plants are inoperation worldwide.

Solvay used much of his considerablepersonal fortune for philanthropic purposes,including the establishment in 1894 inBrussels of several scientific institutes (ofSociology, Physics and Chemistry amongothers) as part of a plan for a technicaluniversity.

He later shelved this plan, and insteadendowed the Solvay Business School at theFree University of Brussels.

In 1911, he held the first of several influentialSolvay Conferences on Physics, whoseparticipants and speakers included suchluminaries as Max Planck, Ernest Rutherford,Marie Curie, Henri Poincaré, Niels Bohr andAlbert Einstein.

He was twice elected to the Belgian Senateand served as a Minister of State from 1918onwards.

He helped to co-ordinate food relief in Europeduring and after the First World War andensured that workers in his factories enjoyedunusually-advanced conditions and benefits.

He set up the Solvay Foundation to build low-cost social housing in Belgium’s cities. Thetown where his first US factory was built waseven renamed Solvay (NY)! He died in Brusselsand is buried in Ixelles Cemetery.

© Flémal – OPT

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Rochefort

Rochefort is a town on the River Lomme in the Belgian Province of Namur, 105km from Brussels. It is home to our Lady of StRémy’s Abbey, where the famous RochefortTrappist beer is brewed. Tourist attractionsinclude the ruined castle and the Lorette and Han caves nearby. Each year, the townhosts an International Comedy Festival.

Don’t miss...The Remains of the Castle of the Counts;the mysterious Cave of Lorette; the Gallo-

Roman Archaeopark of Malagne - aflashback to the second century; walking

trails in the delightful and relaxing nature; tasting one (or more) of the local

trappist beers.

In the surrounding area, Celles, one of the « Most Beautiful Villages of Wallonia

», and its fairy tale castle; the Lavaux-Sainte-Anne fortified castle and its

museum; the Comogne Farm and itsnatural product of mare milk; the

Domain of the Caves of Han.

For more information on unusual things to do, please visit our website


The trappist brewery at Rochefort © Flémal - OPT

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Justine Henin (b 1982)Justine was born on 1 June 1982 in Liège andgrew up in Rochefort (Province of Namur). Shebegan playing table-tennis when she was four,and lawn tennis the following year. Despitebeing short and slight, her powerful techniquecaught the attention of tennis coach GabrielGonzalez who started giving her individuallessons. Justine won her first tournament aged6, and began training with Carlos Rodriguezwhen she was 13. She has often attributedher own strength, and her ability to pushherself to the edge, to the memory andeverlasting presence of her mother, whom shelost at the tender age of 12. In 1994, she wonthe Belgian Junior Championship and in 1997the Junior Championship at Roland-Garros inFrance. She turned professional in 1999,beating the then world n°35 in Antwerp andbeing knocked out by Lindsay Davenport in thesecond round of the French OpenChampionship, and finishing her first year

ranked 69th in the world. In 2001, shereached the semi-finals of the French Open,being knocked out by fellow Belgian KimClijsters, and was ranked 7th in the world. In2003, she won her first two Grand Slam titles,by beating Clijsters twice and taking over fromClijsters as World N°1. She and Clijsters wenton to dominate the women’s tennis circuit,despite missing some tournaments due toillness or injury. She won the gold medal forwomen’s singles tennis for Belgium at the2004 Olympics. To general disbelief, sheannounced her retirement from professionaltennis in 2008, the first reigning N°1-rankedplayer to do so. Having developed her owntennis academy and done charitable work forUNESCO, Justine returned to the professionaltennis circuit in 2010, reaching the final of theAustralian Open on a wild card, but beingknocked out of Wimbledon in the third roundby Clijsters. She has also had an asteroidnamed after her!

Rochefort town hall ©Flémal - OPT

© Belga Pictures

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Chateau de SeneffeVery close to Charleroi and to the tiny village ofLiberchies where Django Reinhardt was born,stands a sumptuous Louis XVI-style countryhouse, which was built between 1763 and1768 for Julien Depestre, a rich businessmanand banker, who was created the first Count ofSeneffe. The architect was Laurent-BenoîtDewez. After changing hands several times,the buildings were acquired by the BelgianFrench-speaking Community, who decided tohouse its magnificent collection of gold and

silver-plate there. Most of the collection wasbequeathed to the Community by thecollectors Claude Dallemagne and his wife,Baroness Juliette Rémy, and it includes piecesby Godefroy de Huy, Hugo d’Oignies, JeanJacobs, Philippe van Dievoet, Balthazar-Philippe Vandive, Jacques Roettiers andJoseph-Germain Dutalis, among others. Thechâteau also hosts regular temporaryexhibitions of the goldsmith’s and silversmith’sart by contemporary artisans.

Gardens at the Chateau de Seneffe © OPT-JL Flemal

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Django Reinhardt (1910 - 1953)Jean “Django” Reinhardt was a Sinto Gypsyjazz guitarist. He was born in his family’scaravan at Liberchies in Belgium, but spentmost of his adult life in France. At the age of10, he taught himself to play his uncle’s banjo,and played the violin for a while before finallysetting on the guitar. At 13, he was alreadyplaying his banjo in bars and cafés, and the

first record he made in 1928 is of him playingthe banjo. In 1928, he was on the point ofleaving for an engagement with the JackHylton orchestra in London when he was badlyburned when his caravan caught fire, andnever fully recovered the use of two fingers onhis left hand. He adapted his guitar techniqueto suit his handicap, and in 1931 he met theviolinist Stéphane Grappelli, with whom hefounded the Quintette du Hot Club de France,whose success was interrupted by the SecondWorld War. At the end of the war, the group re-formed and became one of the leadingEuropean jazz ensembles, absorbing the be-bop and other influences from the US, and inturn influencing a generation of Americanjazzmen. On his return from a tour in the US in1946, Django bought a house in Samois-sur-Seine, near Fontainebleau in France, andcontinued to make recordings. He diedsuddenly from a brain haemorrhage shortlyafter completing a recording session.Reinhardt was one of the first prominent jazzmusicians to be born in Europe, and one ofthe most revered jazz guitarists of all time. His greatest hits include “Nuages”, “MySweet”, “Minor Swing”, “Tears”, “Belleville” and “Djangology”.

Palace gates, Chateau de Seneffe© A Kouprianoff

© Fondation Django Reinhardt

Spa

The town of Spa has given its name to water-therapy establishments all over the world. Itshot-water springs were renowned for theircurative properties in Roman times already,and treatment centres were built here from thesixteenth century onwards. Following the visitof Emperor Joseph II in 1781, the townacquired a fashionable reputation and thenickname “Café of Europe”. Other famousvisitors who came to “take the waters” wereTsar Peter the Great, Casanova, AlexandreDumas père, Meyerbeer, Victor Hugo, AgathaChristie and the Belgian royal family, inparticular Queen Marie-Henriette, wife of KingLeopold II. Stanley Kubrick’s film Barry Lyndonis set among Spa high society in theeighteenth century. Spa acquired an operahouse, a casino, a horse-racing track andtheatres to entertain the visitors. During theFirst World War, Spa was the operationalheadquarters for the German army on theWestern Front. New water-treatment centreswere built in the 1960s as Spa became acentre for mass-tourism and the BelgianFormula One Grand Prix motor races were heldat the nearby Spa-Francorchamps racingcircuit. In 1983, the Spa spring-water-bottlingcompany celebrated its 400th anniversarywith a visit from King Baudouin. In 1994, thefirst “Francofolies de Spa” French-languagemusic and theatre festival was held andbecame a huge success, attracting 150,000visitors in 2007. The former abbey buildings atStavelot have now been converted into theSpa-Francorchamps museum, housing manyartefacts and mementos linked to what isoften called “the driver’s favourite FormulaOne circuit.”

Don’t miss...The fountains of Tzar Peter the Great in the centre of the town, the natural

springs of Spa deep in the forest, the VilleD’Eaux Museum telling the story of the

city, the Church of St Remacle, the Casinoof Spa which is the oldest in the world, themost beautiful and legendary racing circuitof Spa-Francorchamps, the F1 Museum in

Stavelot, the many outdoor activities(hiking, mountain biking,

golfing, skydiving, paragliding). For more discoveries, please visit ourwebsite: www.belgiumtheplaceto.be

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Spa Casino and spring © Jeanmart – OPT

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Jacky Ickx (b 1945)Born on 1 January in Brussels, JacquesBernard Ickx, known as “Jacky”, went onto become arguably the best endurancemotor-racing driver of all time, as well as aFormula 1 motor-racing star. His versatilitywas shown at an early age, when he beatRoger De Coster to win the Belgian juniormotorcycle trials championship. He thenmade the switch to racing-cars and wonthe two-litre European touring car racingchampionship in 1966. This was followedby a string of titles, including EuropeanFormula 2 champion in 1967, eightFormula 1 Grand Prix wins and 25podium finishes, runner-up in the Formula1 world championship twice, winner of the24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race sixtimes, World Endurance champion twice,Can-Am champion in 1979, over 50 othervictories in major endurance races andwins in several rallies, including thegruelling Paris-Dakar Desert Raid rally, inwhich he still competes. He was alsovoted “Le Mans driver of the century”.

Hercule PoirotThe creation of English crime novelist AgathaChristie, who came on regular writing visits toSpa in Belgium, Poirot appears in 33 novelsand 51 of her short stories, published between1920 and 1975. In the cinema and ontelevision, he has been played by CharlesLaughton, Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov andDavid Suchet (who was voted 2010 HonoraryFamous Belgian), among others. In reading thenovels, we learn that, in 1920, he was theretired head of the Belgian CID who had fled to England as a refugee during the First WorldWar, and had settled in the village of Styles St Mary, where the first novel in which heappears, The Mysterious Affair At Styles, wasset. In the subsequent Christie stories he actsas a private detective. He is described asshort, with an egg-shaped head, dyed hair anda waxed moustache, always impeccablydressed in a fussy, dandified manner. Heobserves crime-scenes meticulously and takesa psychological approach to understanding thesuspects, treating cases almost like jigsawpuzzles. His investigations always end with anexposition and explanation of the case beforeall the assembled protagonists. Christiedescribed her Poirot stories as “whydunnits aswell as whodunnits”. Unusually for a fictionalcharacter, Poirot’s death in the novel Curtain:Poirot’s last case published in 1975, led to thepublication of his obituary in the New YorkTimes, beginning “Hercule Poirot, a Belgiandetective who became internationally famous,has died in England. His age was unknown...”

© Belga Pictures

© ITV

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Saint-Hubert

Saint-Hubert is a town of around 5,700inhabitants in the Belgian Province ofLuxembourg. It takes its name from the shrineof Saint Hubert, a former Bishop of Liège,whose relics were transferred in 825 AD to theBenedictine Abbey of Andage, subsequently re-named Saint Hubert’s Abbey. The abbey wasclosed and its land and property sold atauction in 1797. The Abbot’s palace was usedas government offices. Today, it is a quietmarket town that mostly comes alive on SaintHubert’s day on 3 November each year. SaintHubert is the patron saint of huntsmen, manyof whom gather in the town to attend a specialmass to bless their weapons and hounds and then loudly celebrate to the sound ofhunting-horns.

Don’t miss...The Town Hall; the Hurtebise Monastery;

the maladrerie, an ancient place fordiseased people and its washhouse; the Bastogne Door; the Basilica, the

Arboretum of the Fourneau-Saint-Michel’s,Saint Hubert’s Day and the blessing of

the animals (November), and the many wonders of nature.

For more information please visit ourwebsite www.belgiumtheplaceto.be

St Hubert day celebration – blessing of the animals

© Flemal – OPT

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Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759 - 1840)Redouté was born in the Ardennes town of Saint-Hubert and died in Paris. He was a painter who became best-known for hiswatercolours of flowers, especially roses,which led to his being nicknamed “theRaphael of flowers”. He moved to Paris in1782 to live with his brother Antoine-Ferdinandand met the artists Charles Louis L’Héritier deBrutelle and René Desfontaines, who

suggested that he become involved in thethen-burgeoning world of botanical illustration.

Pierre-Joseph followed their advice and went to Kew Gardens in London in 1787 to studythe plants there.

Returning to Paris a year later, he waspresented at Court by L’Héritier and QueenMarie-Antoinette became his first patron,appointing him Painting and Drawing-Master to her Privy Chamber.

In 1792, he left Versailles to work at theAcademy of Sciences, moving in 1798 tobecome Official Painter and Painting-Master to Napoleon’s first wife, Joséphine deBeauharnais, and then, in 1809, toNapoleon’s second wife, Empress Marie-Louise. Following the fall of the Napoleonicregime, Redouté joined the teaching staff atthe National Museum of Natural History, wherehe counted many royal and aristocratic ladiesamong his pupils (including the future QueenLouise-Marie of Belgium).

His long career demonstrates his extraordinarycapacity for “work as normal” through theviolent upheavals of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire that followed it.Working closely with the leading botanists of the period, he produced over fifty volumesof illustrations.Fourneau St-Michel

© Flémal - OPT

A Redouté rose

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Theux

Theux’s roots go back to prehistory. Thepleasant and fertile region of Theux welcomedMesolithic hunters (7000 BC) and Neolithicfarmers (at Becco, Jevoumont and Juslenvilleare sites that have been inhabited since theIron Age). Many Gallo-Romans settled there(cemeteries, potters’ kilns, metal-smeltingfurnaces, temples) and named theirsettlement “ Tectis”.

The discovery of tombs and a funerarymonument dating from the 6th centurydemonstrates that the Merovingians also lived there.

Under the Carolingians, the district of Theuxwas a huge royal hunting ground and becamea parish in 814AD. A royal palace was builtaround 820AD.

In 898 and 915AD, the village was given to theBishop of Liège, who remained the Lord of the Manor until 1794.

In the 11th century,Theux became a part of what would become the Marquisate ofFranchimont in the sixteenth century with theaddition of Verviers, Sart, Spa and Jalhay. At around the same time, a castle was built on a hill, from where, in 1468, 600 local menmarched to drive Charles the Bold out of Liège:they were all slaughtered and the region laidwaste. Shortly afterwards, the metal-smeltingindustry began to grow and kitchen utensilsmade in Theux were sold all over WesternEurope.

Until the nineteenth century, Theux wasfamous for the black marble extracted fromits quarries. More recently it has become the“Crayfish Capital of Wallonia”.

Don’t miss...The local covered market, the fantastic

Franchimont Castle, the Carolingiancovered-market church, the Church of

Saint Hermes and Alexander, theFranchimont mines, the Perron Place

and the architectural centre of the city.

For more information, please visit ourwebsite: www.belgiumtheplaceto.be

The city centre boasts some seventeenth-century houses and the eighteenth-centurytown hall. The town’s main church was built in the seventeenth century, next to athirteenth-century defensive tower, almostunique in Belgium.

Castle of Franchimont in Theux © jeanmart.eu/belgiumtheplaceto.be

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Charles “the Hammer”Martel (AD 688 - 741)founder of the Carolingian dynastyCharles was born in Theux (near Spa andLiège), the illegitimate son of King PepinII. His nickname came from his impressiveheight and strength, and redoubtableskills on the battlefield. He was a brilliantsoldier, gaining control of the Frankishkingdoms of Austrasia, Neustria andBurgundy, covering most of modernFrance and the western part of Germany.His most famous victory was at the Battleof Tours in 732 when the Franks defeatedthe Moors and ended Moorish expansioninto France from Spain. The Carolingiandynasty of Frankish kings is named afterhim, and his successors would go on tobecome Holy Roman Emperors.

Castle of Franchimont in Theux © jeanmart.eu/belgiumtheplaceto.be

Tournai

Tournai is one of the most important culturalsites in Belgium and, with Arlon, is one of thecountry’s oldest towns. It became a bishopricin 496 AD and the mixed Romanesque-GothicOur Lady’s Cathedral and the Civic Belfry areboth UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Thecathedral’s treasury contains many finemediaeval artefacts, including the Châsse deNotre-Dame flamande (Reliquary of Our Ladyof Flanders) whose extraordinarily ornatetwelfth-century design bears witness to thecity’s wealth in the Middle Ages, when it was a member of the powerful Hanseatic League.The thirteenth-century Pont des Trous (“bridgeof holes”) still crosses the Escaut River andsome of the city’s mediaeval gates and housesstill stand and have become touristattractions. At the city’s heart is the beautifulGrand’Place with its series of fountains,surrounded by bars and restaurants. The firstCapital of the Frankish kingdom, the city wouldstruggle and often fight to maintain itsindependent status from its powerfulneighbour, the Count of Flanders, and from the King of France. It was briefly part ofEngland under King Henry VIII from 1513 to1519. In the nineteenth century, its cloth andlime-kiln industries boomed but then went intodecline. Today the City of Tournai is the largestlocal authority by area in Belgium, coveringover 213km2.

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Don’t miss...The Cathedral of Our Lady; the Belfry

(both UNESCO listed); the Military History& Weapons Museum; the Natural HistoryMuseum and Vivarium; the Palace of FineArts which was designed by Art Nouveau

“father” Victor Horta; the Saint-BriceRomanesque district; The Red Tower;

The Pont des Trous, a mediaeval waterbridge; the Saint George Tower, a stroll inone of the beautiful park of the city and

along the Escaut by night.

For more tips and ideas on what to do and see in Tournai, visit our website:


Tournai town centre © Jeanmart - OPT

King Clovis I ( c466 - 511 AD)Clovis was born near Tournai. Through a series of successful wars againstneighbouring Frankish tribes, he unitedFrankish-controlled territory into a singlekingdom around 509 AD. At theinstigation of his wife, Clotilda ofBurgundy, Clovis was baptised by StRemigius at Reims Cathedral, where hissuccessors would be crowned Kings ofFrance. At his death, his kingdom hadroughly the same borders as modern-dayFrance. He was the first of theMerovingian dynasty, that went on to rulethe Franks for 200 years.

Roger de la Pasture also known in Dutch as Van derWeyden (c1400 - 1464)Roger was a pupil of Robert Campin in Tournaifrom 1427 to 1432. He is considered by manyto be one of the greatest Northern Europeanfifteenth-century painters, on a par with thebetter-known Jan van Eyck. His work shares astylistic kinship with works ascribed to the so-called “Master of Flemalle”, nowacknowledged by scholars to have beenCampin. This similarity is typical of the“workshop” or “school” tradition that prevailedin the 15th century. Following the completionof his apprenticeship, around 1436, Rogiermoved to Brussels and was appointed OfficialCity Artist. He became a wealthy man with anestablished reputation due to the paintingscommissioned from him by the Dukes ofBurgundy, the Kings of Spain and the Medici,Visconti and Este princely families in Italy.None of his works are signed or documented,but many works have now been attributed tohim, including the famous Deposition of Christin the Prado in Madrid. His largest paintings,four huge panels for Brussels Town Hall, weredestroyed in the bombardment of 1695.Rogier used rhythmic lines and rich colours toevoke deep emotions in his paintings, and heinfluenced an entire generation of European

painters. In 1450 he visited Italy and probablypainted his Madonna with Four Saints inFlorence for the Medici family, as the picturebears the coat-of-arms of Florence, and thefour saints represented are St Cosmas and St Damian (the family’s patron saints) and St John the Baptist and St Peter (after whomCosimo (the Elder) de Medici’s two sons werenamed). In compositional terms, it is verysimilar to the Florentine sacra conversazione.Rogier then returned to Brussels, where hedied.

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Hélène Dutrieux (1877 - 1961)Dutrieux was born in Tournai. Her brother wasa professional cyclist and ran a circus, andHélène developed a music-hall act as a trick-cyclist. She married a Frenchman and movedto Paris, where she became a semi-professional cyclist, holding the world women’sspeed record from 1897-99 and the Europeanwomen’s speed record in 1898. King LeopoldII of the Belgians awarded her the GrandeCroix avec Diamants de l’Ordre de Saint-Andréin recognition of her success. She developedan interest in motorcycles, and was the firstwoman to ride a “wall of death” and to do afull summersault on a motorbike. As soon asflying lessons became available to non-soldiers, she enthusiastically took them andflew solo for the first time in 1908, beingamong the first women in the world to obtain apilot’s licence. She was the first woman pilot tofly with a passenger in 1910 and was the firstwinner of the Femina Cup (women’s altitudeand endurance flying record). She won the Cupagain in 1911 and was awarded the FrenchCroix de la Légion d’Honneur in 1913, being

the first female pilot to receive this honour.After retiring from active sport, she becamethe Vice-President of the women’s section ofthe Aero-Club de France and set up the HélèneDutrieux-Mortier Cup, with a prize of 200,000francs for the longest distance flown by awoman without landing.

Tournai flower market © OPT

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Wavre

Wavre is the capital of the Belgian Province ofWalloon Brabant and is located on the RiverDyle, in the tourist area known as the “BrabantArdennes”. The town’s mascot is a little boycalled Maca, immortalised in a statue erectedin 1962 which depicts him climbing the wall ofthe Town Hall. The local legend says thatwhoever rubs his bottom will have a year’sgood luck. During the French Revolutionaryperiod, it was a cantonal capital in the Frenchdépartement of Dyle. The first paved road fromWavre to Brussels was built in 1769, and otherroads were built to Namur, Nivelles andLeuven. Initially by-passed by the railway whichwent to Ottignies instead, Wavre’s own stationopened in 1855, and it acquired its ownmotorway junction in 1969. In 1977, Wavrewas merged with Bierges and Limal.

Don’t miss...The Adventure Park; Statues of “Le Maca

et la Crapaude” close to the Town Hall; the basilica church Our Lady of Basse-

Wavre; the Fresco by Roger Leloup; WalibiTheme Park; the shopping district in theChrist’s Bridge Street; relaxing walks in

the pedestrians streets.

For more discoveries, please visit ourwebsite www.belgiumtheplaceto.be

Statue of Maca,Wavre’s Mascot © OPT-JP Remy

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Maurice Carême (1899 - 1978)Carême was born in Wavre. His father was a painter & decorator and his mother workedin a grocer’s shop.

After leaving school, he trained to be aprimary-school teacher and was appointed tohis first post in Wavre in 1917. The followingyear, he was elected mayor of Wavre.

He had started writing poetry aged 13, and he continued to write in his spare time. After a brief flirtation with Futurism between 1928

and 1932, he returned to his previous simplestyle, that was particularly appreciated byyounger readers.

In 1937, he moved to the “White House” in the Avenue Nelly Melba in Anderlecht,Brussels, where he was to live for the rest of his life.

By 1943, he was earning enough from hispoetry and his articles for literary magazines to be able to give up his teaching job.

In his old age, he became something of a cultfigure among French students, who electedhim a “Prince of Poetry” in 1975. His poemshave been translated into several languagesand he received many literary awards.

He also translated the poems of several Dutch-language poets into French.

He set up a charitable foundation, whichinherited his house, now the Carême Museum.

His former secretary, Jeannine Burny, is nowPresident of the foundation and her book “Thedays always pass too quickly: in the footstepsof Maurice Carême” (“Le jour s’en va toujourstrop tôt: sur les pas de Maurice Carême”) waspublished by Editions Racine in 2007.

Street life in Wavre © OPT-JP Remy

© Musée Maurice Carême

Jacques Brel, Victor Horta, Manneken-Pis, Eddy Merckx, Peyo, Plastic Bertrand, AndreasVesalius, Jean-Claude Van Damme

Jean-Joseph Etienne Lenoir

Baron Edouard Louis Joseph Empain

Godfrey of Bouillon

Adolph Sax

Arlette de Huy, John Joseph Merlin

Berthe the White Lady of La Roche

René Magritte

Ambiorix, Emperor Charlemagne, Georges Simenon, Zenobe Gramme, GeorgesNagelmackers, André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry, Elvis Pompilio

Hergé

Rennequin Sualem

Philippa of Hainaut, Louise of Stolberg, Countess of Albany

Cécile de France, Benoît Poelvoorde

Ernest Solvay

Justine Henin

Django Reinhardt

Hercule Poirot, Jacky Ickx

Pierre-Joseph Redouté

Charles the Hammer

Roger de la Pasture, King Clovis I, Helene Dutrieux

Maurice Carême

4 Brussels

24 Liége

48 spa

18 huy

54 theux

16 Dinant

38 Namur12 Beloeil

56 Tournai

34 Mons

22 Lessines

60 Wavre30 Louvaun-la-neuve

42 Rebecq

20 La Roche-en-Ardenne

14 Bouillon

44 Rochefort

10 arlon

52 Saint-Hubert

46 chateau de seneffe

32 chateau de modave

CONTENTS

Sunrise in Wallonia © Jeanmart - OPT

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Belgian Tourist OfficeBrussels & Wallonia217 Marsh Wall London E14 9FJ

Tel. Admin: 020 7531 0390Tel. Trade: 020 7531 0391Tel. Press: 020 7531 0392Fax: 020 7531 0393

www.belgiumtheplaceto.beThe movie is available on www.didyousayfamousbelgians.com

The ultimate guide to the more than five famous Belgians A ... Belgians.pdf · Brussels According...

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Transcript of The ultimate guide to the more than five famous Belgians A ... Belgians.pdf · Brussels According...