Wallonia |
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| In Charleroi the photography museum has composed a beautiful collection of daguerrotypes to up-to-date photos. Refgularly they have temporary exhibitions but therefore it is easier to go and consult their site. |  |
| Also in Charleroi there is the industry museum, till some time ago housed in the buildings of the former steel factory La Providence (once property of the family Licot, residing in Nismes), but nowadays accommodated on the coal-mine site of Le Bois du Cazier. |  |
| You can make cycling tours IN CHARLEROI with Pro Velo. They have bicycles for rent and possibly can guide you in English through this industrial boomtown with coal-mines and immense steel-factories in between living areas with some splendid houses. |  |
| Just north of Charleroi you find the ruins of the abbey of Villers-la-Ville. These ruins are impressive and also nice to go and visit with children: they are allowed to hide in underground spaces, to walk and run through mistic dooropenings and hide themselves behind centuries-old walls. |  |
| West of Charleroi the Canal du Centre connects the bassin of the river Schelde with that of Samber and Maas. Along this threehundred ton canal lots of trees have been planted so it is great cycling from the still functionnal hydraulic ship elevators from the time of king Leopold II over the beautiful bridges in eclectic style. The more you can find two canal tunnels on the track of the old canals connecting Charleroi and Brussels. |  |
| South of Dinant there are the castle and gardens of : a little "Versailles" in renaissance style with gardens in classical French style with a six kilometers long maze and an orangery with orangetrees of more or less threehundred years. |  |
| Between Namen and Dinant the old parts of the eightteenth gardens of ANNEVOIE go on to be a wonderfull place for garden lovers: numerous water parts with fountains and waterfalls without any pumping installation, bedded in a multitude of hays, but without the loud colors of the more recent flower carpets. |  |
| In Namen you shouldn't miss the Félicien Rops museum: a beautiful collection of lithographies, etchings, aquarells, drawings and paintings of the (in Paris) best paid illustrator from the late-nineteenth century. Besides his impressionistic landscapes Rops specially acquired notoriety with his drawings and paintings of the surrounding world with often great erotic inspired scenes. In this museum is also a library specialised in nineteenth century engravings, and a museumshop. |  |
| The Archeological Museum of Namen owns an extensive collection of prehistorical, Gallo-roman and Merovingian antiquities like bronze vessels, earthenware, golden and silver jewels and glass pearls from excavations in the surroundings of Namen. |  |
| If you want to leave our place by bicycle you can follow one of the more and more numerous car-free routes of the "Réseau Autonome des Voies Lentes de Wallonie" or Ravel , for example the one from "La Calestienne" to Hoegaarden (110 km) or Tienen (115 km). |  |
| The Clockarium in Brussels houses a great collection of porcelain sets of mantelpiece ornaments from the beginning of the twentieth century. These porcelain ornaments are forming the cheaper version of the marble ones that are exhibited at "La Calestienne". |  |
