Things to do in Belgium

When the Dutch king William I took the reins of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815, a merger of Belgium and the Netherlands, he began constructing canals.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, electric power experienced its breakthrough. During the Brussels World Exhibition of 1910 and the Ghent World Exhibition of 1913, electric lighting left visitors in awe. Electricity also played a starring role at the Universal Exhibition of Charleroi.

The clay pits of Terhagen in Belgium are part of a vast extraction area along the Rupel River, where clay was mined on an industrial scale throughout the 20th century for brickworks.

In the early twentieth century, Ghent, Belgium, made a massive switch to electric power for trams, street lighting, and harbour cranes. To meet the growing demand, the city commissioned the construction of coal-fired power stations.

During his visit to the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris, Belgian King Leopold II was enchanted by the attraction Tour du Monde — a colourful collection of Japanese towers, Chinese gateways, and galleries in Hindu style.

During the heyday of coal mining, cable winches were standard equipment in every coal mine. Such a winch was used, for example, to install the steel elevator cables.

Clay pits had, from the end of the nineteenth century, taken over more than half of the territory of the hamlet of Terhagen in Belgium. After excavation, nature gradually reclaimed its space.

A 49-meter-long bridge over the River Scheldt, dating back to 1959, was the first railway bridge in Belgium to utilise the technique of prestressed concrete.

For more than half a century, you’ve been able to cross the Kempen Canal near Geel via a Bailey bridge, a temporary bridge developed for military purposes during World War II.

Rising quietly beside the tracks of Oudenaarde Station in East Flanders, the old water tower is easy to overlook—yet it stands as a striking piece of industrial heritage.