#1 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
City Centre Louvain
Louvain
~0.14 miles from Leuven city center
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#2 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Planckendael Zoo (Dierenpark Planckendael)
Mechelen
~11.47 miles from Leuven city center
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#3 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Malou Park
Brussels
~11.86 miles from Leuven city center
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It is located in the Woluwe St Lambert commune of Brussels, to the east of the Woluwe Shopping Centre, in the valley of the Woluwe river. This park is the oldest and the biggest of the commune.
The park was established on the marshy, boggy field surrounding the banks of the Struybeek stream, which is a tributary of the Woluwe river. In 1774 the park featured 7 fish ponds, a small hunting lodge called "t'Speelgoet" and a small reservoir. The gardens of the Speelgoet castle were laid out in the early 17th century by the first knowns owners of the hunting lodge, a local family called Preud'homme.
In 1776 the local merchant and banker Lambert de Lamberts built his residence is the park which was to be later renamed after Jules Malou, the most famous of the residents. The successive owners of the château transformed the formal gardens to the present form of the park, a landscape largely covered by trees.
The commune acquired the park in 1951. The remains of previously large bogs or marshy areas could still be seen behind the Moulin de Lindekemale.
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#4 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
NATO Headquarters
Evere
~12.12 miles from Leuven city center
Hotels Close to NATO Headquarters
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO; pronounced /'ne?to?/, NAY-toe); French: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique Nord (OTAN)), also called "the (North) Atlantic Alliance", is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The NATO headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium, and the organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party.
For its first few years, NATO was not much more than a political association. However, the Korean War galvanized the member states, and an integrated military structure was built up under the direction of two U.S. supreme commanders. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, famously stated the organization's goal was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down". Doubts over the strength of the relationship between the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over the credibility of the NATO defence against a prospective Soviet invasion—doubts that led to the development of the independent French nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of the French from NATO's military structure from 1966.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the organization became drawn into the Balkans while building better links with former potential enemies to the east, which culminated with several former Warsaw Pact states joining the alliance in 1999 and 2004. On 1 April 2009, membership was enlarged to 28 with the entrance of Albania and Croatia. Since the 11 September attacks, NATO has attempted to refocus itself to new challenges and has deployed troops to Afghanistan as well as trainers to Iraq.
The Berlin Plus agreement is a comprehensive package of agreements made between NATO and the European Union on 16 December 2002. With this agreement the EU was given the possibility to use NATO assets in case it wanted to act independently in an international crisis, on the condition that NATO itself did not want to act—the so-called "right of first refusal". Only if NATO refused to act would the EU have the option to act. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the world's defence spending, with the United States alone accounting for about half the total military spending of the world and the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy accounting for a further 15%.
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#5 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
European Quarter
Brussels
~13.73 miles from Leuven city center
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Most of the institutions are located within the European Quarter of Brussels, which is the unofficial name of the area corresponding to the approximate triangle between Brussels Park, Cinquantenaire Park and Leopold Park (with the Parliament's hemicycle extending into the latter). The Commission and Council are located in the heart of this area near to the Schuman station at the Schuman roundabout on the Rue de la Loi. The European Parliament is located over the Brussels-Luxembourg station, next to Luxembourg Square.
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#6 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Jubilee Park (Parc de la Cinquantenaire)
Etterbeek
~13.91 miles from Leuven city center
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Jubelpark (Dutch for "Jubilee Park") or Parc du Cinquantenaire (French for "Park of the Fiftieth", pronounced [pa?k dy s?~k?~tn??]) is a large public, urban park (30 hectares) in the easternmost part of the European Quarter in Brussels, Belgium.
Most buildings of the U-shaped complex which dominate the park, were commissioned by King Leopold II and built for the 1880 National Exhibition commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Belgian independence. The centrepiece triumphal arch was erected in 1905. The structures were built in iron, glass and stone, symbolising the economic and industrial performance of Belgium. The surrounding 30 hectare park esplanade was full of picturesque gardens, ponds and waterfalls. It housed several trade fairs, exhibitions and festivals at the beginning of the century. This settled however in 1930 when it was decided that Cinquantenaire would become a leisure park.[1]
The Royal Military Museum has been the sole tenant of the northern half of the complex since 1880. The southern half is currently occupied by the Cinquantenaire Art Museum and the AutoWorld Museum. The Temple of Human Passions, a remainder from 1886, and the Great Mosque of Brussels from 1978 are located in the north-western corner of the park (see map below).
Line 1 of the Brussels Metro and the Belliard Tunnel from Rue de la Loi/Wetstraat pass underneath the park, the latter partly in an open section in front of the Arch. The nearest metro stations are Schuman to the west of the park, and Mérode immediately to the east.
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#7 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
European Commission Headquarters (Berlaymont Building)
Etterbeek
~14.06 miles from Leuven city center
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The Berlaymont (sometimes nicknamed "the Berlaymonster"[citation needed] or "le Berlaymonstre" in French) is an office building in Brussels, Belgium that houses the headquarters of the European Commission, which is the executive of the European Union (EU). The structure is located at Schuman roundabout at 200 Rue de la Loi, in what is known as the "European district".
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#8 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
St. Rumbolds Cathedral (Sint Romboutskathedraal)
Mechelen
~14.12 miles from Leuven city center
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#9 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
City Centre Mechelen
Mechelen
~14.14 miles from Leuven city center
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#10 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Leopold Park
Etterbeek
~14.25 miles from Leuven city center
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Parc Léopold (French) or Leopoldspark (Dutch) is a public park located within the Leopold Quarter (European Quarter) of Brussels, adjacent to the Paul-Henri Spaak building, the seat of the European Parliament.
The 10-hectare (25 acre) park was opened to the public in 1880 after as the unpopular Royal Zoological Garden (Jardin Royal de Zoologie) had been removed. During the following years, a campus for the famous Solvay School of Commerce was established in the park but construction of additional buildings was soon curtailed for fear of encroachment on the park and its fragile wildlife. The buildings have remained to this day but only one still belongs to Solvay (and houses the Solvay Conference). The building of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences is also located in the park.
The Library of Solvay is also located in the park and houses the think tanks Security and Defence Agenda, Friends of Europe and Maison d'Europe.
The park's outstanding feature is its pond, fed by the Maalbeek stream. Many rare trees (remnants of a botanic garden) and animals such as mallards, moorhens, coots, and even Egyptian geese and rose-ringed parakeets thrive in this urban environment.
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#11 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Saint-Josse-ten-Noode
Schaarbeek
~14.35 miles from Leuven city center
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Sint-Joost-ten-Node (Dutch pronunciation: [s?nt'jo?st?'no?d?]) or Saint-Josse-ten-Noode (French: [s?~ '?os ten 'n?d]; usually shortened to Saint-Josse) is one of the nineteen municipalities located in the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium.
On 1 January 2007 the municipality had a total population of 23,785. The total area is 1.14 km² which gives a population density of 20,664 inhabitants per km². With only 1.14 km², Saint-Josse-ten-Noode is both the municipality with the smallest territory and the highest population density in Belgium.
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#12 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Sonian Forest (Foret de Soigne)
~14.36 miles from Leuven city center
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The Sonian Forest (Dutch: Zoniënwoud, French: Forêt de Soignes) is a 4,421-hectare (10,920-acre) forest that lies across the south-eastern part of Brussels, Belgium.
The forest lies in the Flemish municipalities of Sint-Genesius-Rode, Hoeilaart, Overijse and Tervuren, in Uccle, Watermael-Boitsfort, Auderghem and Woluwe-Saint-Pierre in the Brussels-Capital Region and in the Walloon towns of La Hulpe and Waterloo. Thus it stretches out over the three Belgian Regions.
It is maintained by Flanders (56%), the Brussels-Capital Region (38%) and Wallonia (6%). There are some contiguous tracts of privately-held forest and the Kapucijnenbos, the "Capuchin Wood", which belongs to the Royal Trust.
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#13 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Natural Sciences Museum
Etterbeek
~14.43 miles from Leuven city center
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What are a natural science museum and a research institute for? Official texts establish our mission.
Several research units and services are always further investigating our planet and life upon it. Climate monitoring, nature conservancy, zoological and geological research are only a few of our activities. And, of course, the Museum holds a leading position in the field of anthropology and prehistory. In the annual report, you find an overview of the activities of 2008.
Since we aim at the future here, we attach great importance to international collaboration in all our mission fields.
The Museum is also active in all kinds of associations. Interested to learn about the activities of some of our project groups and partners? Check out their webpage:
www.naturalsciences.be
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#14 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Brussels
~14.63 miles from Leuven city center
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The Vrije Universiteit Brussel listen (help·info) is a Flemish university located in Brussels, Belgium. It has two campuses referred to as Etterbeek and Jette.
The university's name is sometimes abbreviated by "VUB" or translated to "Free University of Brussels". However, it is an official policy of the university not to use abbreviations or translations of its name, because of possible confusion with another university that has the same translated name: the French-speaking Université Libre de Bruxelles.
In fact, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel was formed by the splitting in 1970 of the same Université Libre de Bruxelles, which was founded in 1834 by the Flemish-Brussels lawyer Pierre-Théodore Verhaegen. He wanted to establish a university independent from state and church, where academic freedom would be prevalent. This is today still reflected in the university's motto Scientia vincere tenebras, or Conquering darkness by science, and in its more recent slogan Redelijk eigenzinnig (Dutch), or Reasonably opiniated. Accordingly, the university is pluralistic — it is open to all students on the basis of equality regardless of their ideological, political, cultural or social background — and it is managed using democratic structures, which means that all members — from students to faculty — participate in the decision-making processes.
The university is organised into 8 faculties that accomplish the three central missions of the university: education, research, and service to the community. The faculties cover a broad range of fields of knowledge including the natural sciences, classics, life sciences, social sciences, humanities, and engineering. The university provides bachelor, master, and doctoral education to about 8,000 undergraduate and 1,000 graduate students. It is also a strongly research-oriented institute, which has led to its top-214 position among universities worldwide. Its research articles are on average more cited than articles by any other Flemish university.
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#15 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Universite Libre de Bruxelles
Brussels
~14.70 miles from Leuven city center
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The Université libre de Bruxelles (or ULB) is a French-speaking university in Brussels, Belgium. With its 21,000 students, 29% of whom come from abroad, and its equally cosmopolitan staff, ULB is inherently international, open to Europe and the world.
Université libre de Bruxelles means in English: "Free University of Brussels", but this translation is rarely used all the more since its Dutch-speaking counterpart, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, has the same meaning. Some facilities, shared by both universities, do use the name "Brussels Free Universities", abbreviated BFU. For example the Computing Center, BFUCC.
The history of the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) is closely linked with that of Belgium itself. When the nine provinces that broke away from the Kingdom of the Netherlands formed the Belgian State in 1830, there were three state universities in the country: Ghent, Liege and Leuven. Even though Brussels had been promoted to the rank of capital, it still had no university.
For this reason, in 1831 a group of leading Brussels Masonic figures in the fields of the arts, science and education set themselves the objective of creating a university for the city. They had the choice between a state university and, failing that, a private institution, since the Belgian Constitution, the most liberal in Europe, allowed for this possibility.
Finding the financial burden of the three existing universities too onerous, the Belgian government showed little enthusiasm for yet another state university. However, when in 1834 the episcopate decided to found the Catholic University at Mechelen, things began to happen very quickly. The liberal professions and Freemasons, lead by Pierre-Théodore Verhaegen and Auguste Baron, who were promoting the Brussels university project, stepped up their efforts, with the result that the Free University of Belgium, as it was originally known, inaugurated its first academic year on 20 November 1834.
From 1836 it was to be called the Université Libre de Bruxelles, but although the geographical term may have changed, the adjective "free" remained. This was a key point.
The school's football (soccer) team won the bronze medal at the 1900 Summer Olympics.
Pierre-Théodore Verhaegen, who helped make the university, is the symbol of the creation of the university. November 20, called 'St V', is a holiday for students of both the Université Libre de Belgique and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
Since 1935 some courses have been taught in both French and Dutch, but it was only in 1963 that all faculties held courses in both languages. Shortly after the language dispute at the Catholic University of Leuven, in October 1969 the French and Dutch entities of the ULB separated into two distinct universities. With the act of 28 May 1970, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the Université Libre de Bruxelles officially became two separate legal, administrative and scientific entities.
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#16 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
European Union Parliament Building
Schaarbeek
~14.76 miles from Leuven city center
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http://europarl.europa.eu
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#17 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Ixelles Ponds
Etterbeek
~14.77 miles from Leuven city center
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The Ixelles Ponds (in French: Étangs d'Ixelles, in Dutch: Vijvers van Elsene) are two freshwater ponds in the Brussels municipality of Ixelles. The ponds we can see today are those spared by a 19th-century campaign of drying the wetlands of the Maalbeek valley between the Abbey of La Cambre and Flagey Square.
The two long and narrow ponds, whose total lengths are approximately 700 metres (2,200 feet), and widths are approximately 50 metres (170 feet), are aligned on a roughly North-South axis and are separated by a narrow strip of land. With the surrounding park, the Ixelles Ponds are the tip of a long strip of almost uninterrupted greenery reaching all the way from the Sonian Forest deep into the urban tissue of Brussels.
The ponds are an extremely popular recreation area for local residents. However, the water is polluted with cyanobacteria and signs posted at regular intervals warn of a risk of botulism. All contact with the water is prohibited, as is sitting on the grass in the immediate vicinity of the water, although the latter rule is not strictly enforced. In spite of the pollution, waterfowl thrive around the ponds.
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#18 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Brussels Park (Parc de Brussels)
Sainte-Catherine
~14.83 miles from Leuven city center
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Parc de Bruxelles (French) or Warandepark (help·info) (Dutch), is the largest urban public park in the center of Brussels. It is surrounded by the Royal Palace of Brussels, the Belgian parliament and the U.S.A. embassy. In the summer, free parties are organized every weekend in the heart of this park. There is also the Théâtre Royal du Parc (Dutch: Parktheater) on its border. The park is served by Park metro station on line 1 & 5 of the Brussels metro.
Its main paths and fountain are laid out in the form of masonic symbols (in particular the compass)
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#19 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Royal Castle of Laken
Jette
~14.84 miles from Leuven city center
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The Royal Castle of Laken is the official residence of the King of the Belgians.
The castle was built at Laken between 1782-1784 after the plans of the French architect Charles de Wailly under supervision of Louis Montoyer as a summer residence for the Governors of the Habsburg Netherlands, Archduchess Maria Christina of Austria and her husband Albert of Saxe-Teschen.
On 21 July 1803, Nicolas-Jean Rouppe, as commissioner of the department of the Dijle, received Napoleon at the Castle of Laken. Napoleon stayed here with his Empress in August 1804 on his way from awarding the first Légion d'honneur to his invasion troops at Boulogne to his progress along the Rhine, and later (on invading Belgium during the Hundred Days in 1815) dated this proclamation prematurely from the palace.
“ To the Belgians and the inhabitants of the left bank of the Rhine. - The ephemeral success of my enemies detached you for a moment from my empire. In my exile, upon a rock in the sea, I heard your complaint; the God of Battles has decided the fate of your beautiful provinces; Napoleon is among you; you are worthy to be Frenchmen. Rise in a body; join my invincible phalanxes to exterminate the remainder of these barbarians, who are your enemies and mine: they fly with rage and despair in their hearts. - The Imperial Palace of Lacken, 17 June 1815. (Signed) NAPOLEON, The Imperial Palace of Lacken, 17 June 1815. By the Emperor, The Major-General of the Army, Count Bertrand."
Nicolas-Jean Rouppe, as burgomaster of Brussels, received the new king Leopold I of Belgium also at the Castle of Laken on 21 July 1831, the day when Leopold swore allegiance to the Belgian constitution. The Château was partly destroyed by fire in 1890 and rebuilt by Alphonse Balat. The French architect Charles Girault gave it its present outline in 1902. It has been the royal residence since the accession to the throne of king Leopold I in 1831. The domain also contains the magnificent Royal Greenhouses of Laeken, a set of monumental dome-shaped constructions, accessible to the public only a few days a year. They were designed as well by Alphonse Balat, with the cooperation of the young Victor Horta.
The vast park of the Château includes lakes, a golf course and various pavilions like the Chinese Pavilion and the Japanese Tower. The Chinese Pavilion was commissioned by king Leopold II. The rooms are designed in a 'Chinoiserie' Louis XIV-style and Louis XVI style. They are decorated with Chinese motifs, chinaware and silverware. The Japanese Tower is a pagoda, originally built for the world fair of Paris in 1900. It was bought by King Leopold II and brought to Brussels.
Upon their accession to the throne in 1993, King Albert II and Queen Paola preferred to remain living at Belvédère, a château on the grounds of the park surrounding the castle. The current occupants of the castle are TRH The Duke and Duchess of Brabant.
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#20 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Bois de la Cambre
Brussels
~14.85 miles from Leuven city center
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Ter Kamerenbos (Dutch) or Bois de la Cambre (French) is an urban public park on the edge of the Sonian Forest in Brussels, Belgium. It has an area of 1.23 square kilometres. The park lies in the south of Brussels-Capital Region, is comprised in the municipality of the City of Brussels and is linked to the rest of the municipality by the Avenue Louise, which was built at the same time the park was laid out, in 1861.
It comprises a small lake with an island in the centre, called Robinson's island. It is considered by many as one of the finest parks in Brussels.
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#21 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Brussels Exhibition Centre
Brussels
~14.87 miles from Leuven city center
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#22 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Royal Palace of Brussels
Brussels
~14.90 miles from Leuven city center
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The Royal Palace of Brussels (Dutch: Koninklijk Paleis van Brussel, French: Palais Royal de Bruxelles) is the official palace of the King of the Belgians in the centre of the nation's capital Brussels. However it is not used as a royal residence, as the king and his family live in the Royal Castle of Laeken on the outskirts of Brussels. The website of the Belgian Monarchy describes the function of the palace as follows: "The Palace is where His Majesty the King exercises his prerogatives as Head of State, grants audiences and deals with affairs of state. Apart from the offices of the King and the Queen, the Royal Palace houses the services of the Grand Marshal of the Court, the King's Head of Cabinet, the Head of the King's Military Household and the Intendant of the King's Civil List. The Palace also includes the State Rooms where large receptions are held, as well as the apartments provided for foreign Heads of State during official visits."
The palace is situated in front of Brussels Park. A long square called the Paleizenplein/Place des Palais separates the palace from the park. The middle axis of the park marks both the middle peristyle of the palace and the middle of the facing building on the other side of the park, which is the Palace of the Nation (the Belgian Federal Parliament building). The two facing buildings are said to symbolize Belgium's system of government: a constitutional monarchy.
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#23 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Quartier Louise
Sint-Gillis
~14.95 miles from Leuven city center
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#24 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Center for the Belgian Comic Strip (Centre Belge de la Bande Desinee)
Sainte-Catherine
~14.96 miles from Leuven city center
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The Belgian Comic Strip Center houses probably the most important public comic strip library with the largest number of titles in the world. The study library contains the complete collection of albums, periodicals and reference works owned by the Belgian Comic Strip Center. Opening hours are slightly different from the Belgian Comic Strip Center's and the collection is only available for consultation on site.
Tuesday to Thursday: 12 to 5pm – Friday: 12 to 6pm
Friday: 12 à 18 heures
Saturday: 10am to 6pm
Closed on Sundays and Mondays.
Attention: access for over 16 years only.
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#25 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Bellevue Museum
Brussels
~15.00 miles from Leuven city center
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The BELvue Museum in Brussels, Belgium, is a museum about the national history of Belgium. Exhibitions divided over twelve rooms explore the major periods in Belgium's history, such as the Belgian Revolution, the country in World War I and in World War II. Exhibitions in the hallways discuss the various monarchs of Belgium.
The museum is located in the Bellevue Hotel, a luxury hotel built in the 18th century. It is on top of the Coudenberg and offers an entrance to the archaeological excavations beneath.
In 1977, the hotel became a museum and was totally transformed for this new function. The Royal Museums of Art and History shows some of the collections of furniture and porcelain of 1700. The "Dynasty's Museum" will be installed at the second floor, in 1992.
After the Royal Museums of Art and History's departure in the 1998, the Hotel allows the "King Baudouin Memorial" and an atrium and a big glass window, with view on the royal palace’s park, were constructed.
In 2000 the access for the underground, and so to the archaeological vestiges of the old Coudenberg Palace, are realized after different archaeological excavation realized in different steps; the last one of these was in meantime of the survey by Royal Archeological Society of Brussels in collaboration with the Université libre de Bruxelles. The "Dynasty's Museum" and "King Baudouin Memorial" are lodged until December 2004.
For the 175 anniversary of independence, the King Baudouin Foundation decide to take care about the transformation of the hotel, in a new museum dedicated to history of Belgium.
After a totally reorganization, the "BELvue Museum" opened its doors in July 2005. Twelve room are dedicated to the most important period of the Belgium's history. These one are documented by different originals historical documents, and audiovisual testimonials.
In this way any visitor can discover the country's history through the different documents. There are three levels of reading, that can help to go from a general context, to the most important moments necessary to understand the Belgium's reality of today, as the fight for Universal Suffrage, the World Wars, and the royal case the "golden sixties" or the recent State reforms.
In the meantime of this exhibition, a continual trail will show the reign of each of Belgium's Kings, through different Royal family's artistic opera.
The Bellevue Museum is managed by the "Fonds BELvue", created by the King Baudouin Foundation.
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#26 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Cathedrale St. Michel
Sainte-Catherine
~15.03 miles from Leuven city center
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The St. Michael and Gudula Cathedral (Cathédrale Saint-Michel or Sint-Michiels Kathedraal) in Brussels is named for the patron saints of Belgium and is the primary church of the country.
History
After the Cathedral of St. Michael was completed circa 1047, the Duke of Brabant transferred the relics of Saint Gudula here. Very little is known about this daughter of a 7th-century Carolingian nobleman, but her relics are still sheltered in the cathedral.
In the 13th century, the cathedral was renovated in the Gothic style. The choir was constructed between 1226 and 1276. The facade was completed in the mid 15th century.
Today, the Cathedral of St. Michael and Gudula is the episcopal see of the Archbishop of Mechlin-Brussels and therefore the leading Catholic church in Belgium. All royal weddings and christenings take place here.
What to See
Perhaps the most outstanding feature of the interior are the stained glass windows, designed by various artists. Those by Bernard van Orley, a 16th-century court painter, are the most spectacular.
The window of The Last Judgment, at the bottom of the nave, is illuminated from within in the evening.
The remains of an earlier, 11th-century Romanesque church that was on the site can be glimpsed through glass apertures set into the floor.
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#27 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Metro Station
Brussels
~15.08 miles from Leuven city center
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Brussels Metro (French: Métro de Bruxelles, Dutch: Brusselse metro) is a metro system serving a large part of the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium. It consists of a network with four metro lines services with some shared sections and two light rail lines or "premetro" (underground sections used by otherwise open-air tramway lines and designed so as to be convertible to conventional metro lines.). Additionally, it includes a few short underground tramway sections, which makes more than 50 km of underground network and 68 underground stations.
Most of the common section of the first two lines (between De Brouckère and Schuman) was inaugurated on December 17, 1969 as "premetro" (thus with tramways), and was converted in 1976 to the first two lines of the actual metro (which was then considered as one line with two branches).
The Brussels metro is administered by STIB/MIVB, the Société des Transports Intercommunaux de Bruxelles (in French) or the Maatschappij voor het Intercommunaal Vervoer te Brussel (in Dutch).
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#28 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Place Royale
Brussels
~15.08 miles from Leuven city center
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The Place Royale (French), Koningsplein (Dutch), or Royal Square (English), is a historic square near the center of Brussels, Belgium.
The square itself is built on the former site of the Baliënplein, which was the main market square adjacent to the former palace of Coudenberg. The palace burned down, however, during a fire that took much of the original royal complex on the night of February 3, 1731. Construction of the new buildings around the square took from 1773 to 1780, using the design of French architect Barnabé Guimard, who received that commission in 1769. The square is almost an exact replica of the Place Royale in Reims.
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#29 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Arcade De Guimard
Brussels
~15.08 miles from Leuven city center
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#30 of 30 Things To Do in Leuven
Museum of Musical Instruments Old England Building
Brussels
~15.10 miles from Leuven city center
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The Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) is a music museum in central Brussels, Belgium. It is part of the Royal Museums for Art and History and internationally renowned for its collection of over 1,500 instruments.
Originally attached to the Brussels Royal Music Conservatory with the didactic purpose of showing early instruments to students, the MIM collection was created in 1877 with a collection of a hundred Indian instruments given to King Leopold II of Belgium by Rajah Sourindro Mohun Tagore in 1876 and the collection of the celebrated Belgian musicologist François-Joseph Fétis, purchased by the Belgian government in 1872 and put on deposit in the Conservatory, where Fétis was the first director.
Its first curator, Victor-Charles Mahillon, greatly expanded the already impressive collection so that, by the time of his death in 1924, the MIM consisted of some 3,666 articles, among which 3,177 were original musical instruments. He was noted of his astute judgments in obtaining these large augmentations by calling on philanthropists, mixing with erudite amateurs who sometimes became generous donors, and through friendly relations with Belgian diplomats in foreign posts, who sometimes brought back instruments from beyond Europe.
The monumental five-volume catalogue of the collection Mahillon commissioned between 1880 and 1922 also included four versions of his essay on the methodical classification of both ancient and modern instruments, which was to serve as the basis for the organological Hornbostel-Sachs classification systems still used today. Beginning in 1877, Mahillon also created a restoration workshop in the MIM where he employed and trained a worker, Franz de Vestibule, to restore damaged articles and make copies of unique instruments in other public collections.
Mahillon's successor at the Conservatory, François-Auguste Gevaert, organized several successful concerts of professors and students playing early instruments in the 1880s.
After the first World War, donors and philanthropists became rarer, with only about a thousand instruments entering the collections between 1924 and 1968, and Belgium's famed instrument builders began becoming scarcer. Until 1957, the curators taking their turn at the head of the MIM, with Ernest Closson (1924-1936), his son Herman (1936-1945), and René Lyr (1945-1957) limiting themselves through the two world wars to preserving the already collected instruments, in not always satisfactory conditions. Ernest is notable for editing several articles on Belgian makers for the National Biography and devoting a long monograph to La facture des instruments de musique en Belgique, which appeared at the 1935 Universal Exhibition held in Brussels.
With the arrival of the esteemed Latinist Roger Bragard, curator between 1957 and 1968, larger budgets became available from the Ministy of Culture as exhibits were renovated, new personnel were hired, concerts were again organized, and new rare pieces were collected. His efforts were continued by his successors René de Maeyer (1968-1989), Nicolas Meeùs (1989-1995), and Malou Haine (1995-2009).
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