Southern Belgium Travel Guide

South of Brussels, the western reaches of Wallonia are given over mainly to the French-speaking province of Hainaut, whose rolling farmland is marked by pockets of industrialization, which coalesce between Mons and Charleroi. The highlight of the province is Tournai , a vibrant, unpretentious city with a number of decent museums and the finest Romanesque-Gothic cathedral in the country. East of Charleroi lie the high wooded hills of the Ardennes , covered by the three provinces of Namur in the west, Luxembourg in the south and Liège in the east. The best gateway towns for the Ardennes, which are well worth exploring on the way south into Luxembourg and Germany, are the lively provincial centre of Namur , an hour from Brussels by train, and Dinant - a small but much visited town beside the Meuse a further thirty-minute train journey south.