The Ardennes
Selling the waters of Spa remains big buiness, with millions of bottles filled annually at this industrial-scale plant. A self-guided visit to the production facility includes views down on the bottling lines and tablet-led games for school kids, but information is only in French and Dutch.
Though the plant is just across the tracks from Spa's train station there is no bridge so access requires a 900m detour.
22.12 MILES
It’s impossible to overestimate the significance of Aachen’s magnificent cathedral. The burial place of Charlemagne, it’s where more than 30 German kings…
25.94 MILES
Built above and around the shrine of St Servaas (Servatius), the first bishop of Maastricht, the basilica presents an architectural pastiche whose…
14.82 MILES
For one of the best industrial-experience tours you'll find anywhere, don a hard hat, jump in the cage lift and descend through a pitch-black moment into…
7.01 MILES
Playing a 21st-century Willy Wonka, one of Belgium’s foremost chocolatiers has turned his modern factory into a superb interactive museum experience. Walk…
16.19 MILES
Splendid Grand Curtius unites four disparate museum collections in the former mansion-warehouse of a 16th-century Liège arms dealer. The building's red…
22.12 MILES
Aachen's cathedral treasury is a veritable mother lode of gold, silver and jewels. Of particular importance are the silver-and-gold bust of Charlemagne…
16.18 MILES
Arguably Liège's most fascinating church, this architectural hotchpotch was founded in 1015 and retains a heavily patched-up 1170 west end whose…
Liège-Guillemins Train Station
15.77 MILES
Liège's main train station, around 2km south of the centre, is an incredible 2009 icon designed by Santiago Calatrava. Great for semi-abstract landscape…
0.19 MILES
In a 1862 Napoleon III–style building 300m west of Spa's casino, the small but engaging Spa Story museum charts the town's history while looking at the…
0.29 MILES
This lovably off-beat little museum fills the banal classrooms of a 1960s former primary school with a hotchpotch of old flat irons, linens, washing…
0.37 MILES
With a picturesque Léopold II–era pavilion and a wrought-iron marketplace hosting Sunday morning flea markets, this charming park also features minigolf,…
0.47 MILES
Spa had the 'world’s first’ casino in 1763, and the 19th-century incarnation here now forms part of a grand central trio of neoclassical buildings, along…
0.54 MILES
The restored, octagonal-fronted stone building hosting the tourist office was the site of Spa’s original springs. It was renamed for Russian tsar Peter…
7.01 MILES
Playing a 21st-century Willy Wonka, one of Belgium’s foremost chocolatiers has turned his modern factory into a superb interactive museum experience. Walk…
7.18 MILES
Vervier's most attractive square is dominated by a stately town hall, with cobbled Mont du Moulin descending photogenically past ivy-draped and half…
8. Musée des Beaux-Arts et de la Céramique
7.33 MILES
If you can catch it open, pop in to see this small but high-quality collection of 14th- to 19th-century paintings and remarkable ceramics. Entry is free…