8 notable places within an hour's drive.
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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.
15 km · about 30 min drive
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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.
28 km · about 30 min drive
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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.
31 km · about 35 min drive
natural wonder
Hallerbos
The 'Blue Forest' near Halle carpets itself with millions of wild bluebells under beech trees each spring.
44 km · about 50 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.
45 km · about 50 min drive
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Vieux Lille
Lively old quarter of Flemish brick gables and grand squares, the cultural capital of the French north.
48 km · about 55 min drive
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Lion's Mound Waterloo
A grass pyramid topped by a cast-iron lion marks the 1815 battlefield where Napoleon met his final defeat.
52 km · about 60 min drive
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Grand-Place
Opulent central square in Brussels surrounded by ornate guildhalls and the Gothic town hall, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
58 km · about 65 min drive