When we first arrived in Brussels we visited the tourist information office in the Grand Place. Amongst the many leaflets and booklets the friendly staff gave us, was a guide to the Green Walking Ring, La Promenade Verte in French, De Groene Wandeling in Dutch, the network of walking paths and cycle tracks that encircle Brussels in several languages. Almost uniquely for Brussels, the signposting is excellent.
Two years passed, but at a loose end one Sunday morning we set off to explore the environs of Brussels. Our circumnavigation of the 60 km route has taken six months to complete, stopping and restarting several days or weeks later. It’s been a labour of love, but recently, and finally, we completed the route, witnessing the changing landscape of the city outskirts as well as of the seasons.
The route passes through urban areas and green spaces that you would be unlikely to discover normally, and takes you into neighbourhoods that rarely see visitors, let alone tourists. In some places it’s pretty clear why that’s the case, but mostly the journey reveals interesting parts of the city that most don’t get to see. As with the rest of Brussels, there are few show stoppers along the route, but don’t let that stop you, it’s fascinating.
The route also reveals the economic and social inequalities between different parts of Brussels*. There is a world of difference between the northern and southern halves of the city. Comparing leafy Uccle and Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, with their villas hidden behind high walls and electronic gates with CCTV, to Anderlecht, Molenbeek and parts of Forest is jarring.
Eye opening though that is, the route is first and foremost about exploring lesser-known parts of Brussels: from the Foret de Soignes and the Étangs de Boitsfort in the south, to the Garden City of Moortebeek near Anderlecht, and the string of parks and gardens running through Jette, in the north. Surprises abound. Here are some of the highlights from the seven stages of the Green Ring:
Schaerbeek to Woluwe-Saint-Lambert via the Battle of Waterloo
Schaerbeek is considered to be ‘up and coming’, particularly around the Parc Josaphat, stray from the gentrification though and it can be a bit grim. The Green Ring passes the pink and white brick Schaerbeek Station – if there was ever a case of a ‘fairytale railway station’, this is it – and then through dour suburban streets to Parc du Doolegt, arriving in front of the impressive entrance gates of the Brussels Cemetery.
Full of military burial sites, from the Belgian Revolution, the Franco-Prussian War and the two World Wars, this is also the final resting place of soldiers from the Battle of Waterloo. Its glorious tree-lined avenues are also home to many famous Belgians. A memorial marks the graves of 251 people who died in one of Belgium’s worst modern disasters, the L’Innovation Department Store fire. More urban streets await until you connect with the old Brussels-Tervueren railway line.
Into the forest, wealthy Woluwe-Saint-Pierre to the ponds of Watermael-Boitsfort
South from the Green Ring’s gritty urban section in Schaerbeek, you’ll soon find yourself passing an 18th century windmill in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert. This section of the route leads into the Woluwe valley where a former rail line, now a wooded trail, guides you into a series of landscaped parks – Malou Park, Woluwe Park, Seny and Ten Reuken Parks. You can tell that this is one of the wealthier areas in Brussels.
Eventually this string of green spaces arrives at the highlight of the southern part of the Green Ring, the Foret de Soignes. This vast beech forest is magnificent and has earned an UNESCO World Heritage designation. Days could be spent wandering in the woods here. The sun came out and the forest floor was dappled with sunlight as we arrived in village-like Boitsfort. Passing the local cemetery we descended to the Étangs de Boitsfort.
Through the Foret de Soignes into south Uccle
The Foret de Soignes continues on the other side of Boitsfort and we walked almost alone amongst the trees until we hit the outskirts of Uccle, a commune that is both leafy and wealthy. You can tell this by the fact that on either side of roads with no pavements (everyone drives), are villas protected by high fences. This is the most affluent area of the city, and it shows. In the 19th century it was a bourgeoisie stronghold, a century later little has changed.
We were glad to merge back into the Verrewinkelbos, a remnant of the Foret de Soignes and now a small nature reserve. At this point if you walked a 100 meters south you’d be in Flanders. On the next couple of sections of the route we’d trace the border between the two. We passed through an area of urban vegetable gardens and more woods, now cut off from the forest by development, until we emerged out of the Kinsendael-Kriekenput nature reserve.
Relics of the Industrial Revolution, leafy Uccle to urban Anderlecht
This section offers perhaps the greatest contrast, both in landscapes and economics. The walk follows the Geleytsbeek stream through a landscape once heavily industrialised. The stream powered eleven mills and became a centre of paper production from the 17th century. Now only Nekkersgat Mill survives. The route soon leaves the greenery of Uccle behind and quickly transitions as it approaches the canal.
In an industrial estate near the actual railway is a wonderful sight, Le Petit Train à Vapeur de Forest, a miniature steam train in Parc du Bempt. In the weird landscape of industrial zones after this point we found ourselves on the banks of the River Senne. Crossing the canal things took a bizarre turn as we tiptoed along the Brussels-Flanders border in a green area behind Ikea. This meant only one thing, we were in Anderlecht.
Where the cows roam, the Pajottenland to Sint-Jans-Molenbeek
In the Green Ring guide is a photo of Galloway cows in a field backed by tower blocks. No one expects things to look like they do in the photos – we never saw any deer and there’s a photo of one of them in the guide. But as we walked through a green space at the end of this section there they were, fluffy Scottish cows on the semi-urban edge of Brussels.
This bit of the walk feels like you are on the verge of straying into the countryside. This is where Brussels collides with the Pajottenland, a rural Flemish region famed as the birthplace of Geuze beer. It’s a lovely part of the walk that passes through Neerpede, the green outer rim of Anderlecht with a string of small ponds. It’s really nice and soon leads into Bon Air (1923) and Moortebeek (1921), two Garden Cities constructed for Brussels’ urban poor.
Into the Molenbeek valley, Jette and Sint-Agatha-Berchem
Molenbeek in northern Brussels comes with a reputation, none of it very positive, but it gets its name from a pretty valley area that passes through parks, marshes, meadows and woods that lead all the way to the Royal Park in Laeken. It’s an area that came as a real surprise, in particular the Marais de Jette-Ganshoren where, for a moment, you can pretend you’re in the countryside despite being 500m from the E19 highway.
Earlier in this section things are far less green and you’ll find yourself in uninteresting streets and crossing major roads. The Basilix Shopping Center area was a particular lowlight despite seeing a flock of strange looking sheep in a field nearby. Even here though, the route does a good job of linking green areas however small they may be.
The Heysel plateau and the Royal Park of Laeken
Our final stage of the ring kicked off in the long and thin Parc Roi Baudouin, remarkably nice parkland in Jette. It leads to the recently reopened Jardin Sobieski, which was originally part of the royal gardens, where fruit for the palace was grown. The gardens link to the bottom of Boulevard du Centenaire. A short diversion from the official route takes you past the Atomium and the Brussels Expo – a huge Art Deco construction built for the 1935 World’s Fair. Nearby is the Design Museum.
Back on track, the route passes the Neptune Fountain, a 1902 replica of the 16th century original in Bologna, Italy. Close by is the Chinese Pavilion, a criminally neglected ‘royal’ museum that looks like it is falling down, and the Japanese Tower. Both were built at the same time as the fountain under the orders of Leopold II (better known as the Butcher of The Congo). The route descends to the canal, crossing by the Brussels Docks shopping centre to bring you back to Schaerbeek where this walk, promenade or wandel all began.
* If you want to know a bit more about the troubling socio-economic disparities in Brussels, take some time to scroll through the excellent Ailing Brussels: Portrait of a city where inequalities operate in a vicious circle from public interest journalism group, Médor.
I was lucky enough to be able to afford to live not far from the Étangs de Boitsfort (I was being paid utterly stupid money for a contract gig in Brussels and rented a large apartment on the Avenue de Tervuren. It was a beautiful place to wander around on a Sunday afternoon. I didn’t get the chance to do it often enough.
Lucky you, it’s a lovely area. I have a friend who has lived in Boitsfort for 15 years so get to visit fairly regularly. It’s so easy to get into the forest from there as well.
The architecture catches my eye as I’m learning to view it differently these days. Around the world old railway stations possess a grand statement that appears at odds with it’s prosaic use, even given that train travel offered a visit to foreign lands. I wonder if they had another function that is lost to history… much symbolism in the expo building too. Thanks for sharing, I’d be keen to travel that path through the up and down of the city- surely that’s the way to understand a place better.
Looks and sounds beautiful