The Abbaye de Villers is only 50km from Brussels but it feels like it could be in another time and country. This huge monastic complex was once one of the wealthiest and most influential in Europe. In its 13th century Golden Age, it was home to 100 monks and 300 lay ‘brothers’, and it owned an estate of over 100 square kilometres. That was enormous for the time and highlights the vast wealth of this Cistercian religious community.
Today, the abbey is a magnificent ruin. Strolling the grounds and exploring the ruined buildings is a spellbinding experience. I had set off from the small town of Ottignies, and was cycling through the Brabant Wallon on a route the Wallonia tourist office calls, In the time of the monks, failing to mention the many sections of hellish cobbled roads and hills. The Abbaye de Villers arrived at around the halfway point and was a welcome rest.
The abbey is set amongst rolling hills and areas of woodland. Even today, with a nearby road and a railway line that cuts through part of the grounds, you still get the sense of isolation and tranquility that would have typified this community for centuries. The first monks arrived from Clairvaux Abbey in France in 1146. They moved to a new location in 1197 and began construction of the abbey we see today.
It took the best part of century to finish the building works, and over the centuries more buildings were added. The abbey suffered attacks and looting through the 16th and 17th centuries, but experienced another Golden Age in the 18th century, just in time to run headlong into the iconoclasm of the French Revolution. The abbey was ransacked by the revolutionaries, who left it a ruin to be sold off.
Fortunately, it wasn’t completely destroyed. A flourishing of interest during the 19th century by artists and writers (Victor Hugo visited the abbey five times), probably helped save it as a heritage site. It is well worth a visit, as is the attached brasserie that makes its own beers. The beer definitely helped with the cobbled roads and steep hills that were still to come.
Leaving the abbey behind, I was soon crossing open farmland on empty tracks. Two hundred years earlier, French armies under the command of Napoleon manoeuvred across this landscape in preparation for their confrontation with the British armies of Wellington and the the Prussian army under von Blücher at the Battle of Waterloo. In a field near the village of Sart-Dames-Avelines, I came across a memorial to a different war.
The site marked the place where two members of the Armée Secrète, the Resistance fighting the Nazi occupation of Belgium. Edouard Guirsch and Raymond Herbinia were executed on this spot after being captured during a sabotage operation. There were Commonwealth graves from the same war in Baisy-Thy cemetery, in the distance the village church could be spotted across ploughed fields.
I cycled through the village of Genappe towards the southern end of the battlefield of Waterloo. Some of the most appallingly maintained cobbled roads brought me a few kilometres later to Caillou Farm, more famous for being Napoleon’s Last Headquarters before his defeat at Waterloo. It was here on the evening of 17 June, that Napoleon and his high command prepared their battle plans for the following day.
The ancient farm house is today a small museum, unfortunately located on the N5, a massively trafficked road leading to Brussels. It takes the romanticism away from the history of this spot. Early on 18 June, Napoleon ate breakfast on a silver plate and issued his General Orders for the battle. The rest, as they say, is history. For me though, I still had to cycle back to Ottignies.
The route passed through Plancenoit, where fierce fighting took place between the French and Prussians. There are memorials to both armies in the village. After Plancenoit I found myself in the countryside passing the well preserved 13th century Château-ferme de Moriensart, en route to the village of Céroux-Mousty. Here the cemetery has a link to Tintin (the Hergé Museum is nearby), the grave of Jacques Martin.
I do very much regret that during my time living and working in Brussels I didn’t get out and about more but work, motor racing, and the fact that it was 2001 and there weren’t the resources to tell me what was out there to go and see stymied me back then. I increasingly think a Belgian road trip might prove to be a very good thing.
We’ve just spent a few days walking in the Belgian Ardennes near Bouillon, I would definitely add it to the list of places to visit. Belgium packs a lot into a small space but even today it can be challenging finding info. on places. It’s all very low key!