8 notable places within an hour's drive.
historic highway
Chimay Street Circuit
A Belgian village street circuit running since 1926, still used for historic car and motorcycle racing on closed public roads. Between meetings you can drive the whole flat-out 4km lap through farmland and the town outskirts.
14 km · about 25 min drive
landmark
Canal du Centre Hydraulic Boat Lifts
Four UNESCO-listed 19th-century hydraulic boat lifts near La Louvière, still standing on the old Canal du Centre.
35 km · about 40 min drive
landmark
Strépy-Thieu Boat Lift
A colossal 73 m boat elevator on the Canal du Centre, among the tallest in the world, hoisting entire barges in a concrete cathedral visible for miles across Hainaut.
36 km · about 40 min drive
landmark
Rocroi
Perfect star-shaped bastioned town in the French Ardennes, laid out in 1555 and remodelled by Vauban, its five-pointed geometry of ramparts and radial streets still fully intact.
36 km · about 40 min drive
photogenic
Belvédère de la Longue Roche
Quartzite ledge 140 m above Monthermé with the classic head-on view of the Meuse doubling back in a full horseshoe meander: the signature photograph of the French Ardennes, a short walk from roadside parking.
49 km · about 55 min drive
landmark
Pairi Daiza
Belgium's most-visited attraction: a 75-hectare animal park built around a former Cistercian abbey in Hainaut, with full-scale Chinese, Indonesian and Middle Kingdom gardens housing giant pandas, gorillas and elephants.
51 km · about 60 min drive
racetrack
Nivelles-Baulers
A flat, fast circuit that hosted two Belgian Grands Prix in the 1970s before closing in 1981. Much of the abandoned track survives among industrial development, its wide sweeping curves clearly readable from ground level.
52 km · about 60 min drive
castle
Citadelle de Dinant
A cliff-top fortress towering over the Meuse and a riverfront of pastel houses below the bulbous onion-domed church.
53 km · about 60 min drive