Cycling route to Clabecq, Braine-le-Château and Ittre

Do not hesitate to enter this beautiful building from the early 16th century featuring a wonderful Renaissance sandstone gable. You will be warmly welcomed by the team at the Braine-le-Château tourist office.This building used to be the residence of the bailiff who was responsible for dealing with criminal matters. These days it very often has temporary exhibitions.The Bailiff’s House also houses the Tool Centre. Tools, artefacts, old books and documents for different professions are collected here. In particular, discover an exceptional collection of music engraving tools.Discover the Bailiff’s House on the small walking tour of Braine-le-Château.

On the main square in Braine-le-Château, the stocks are a symbol of infamy, a mechanism of high justice that were used to publicly shame a criminal. This is one of the rare examples to still have its lantern structure. It is made from blue stone and has a lantern structure that can hold a standing man. It has been restored and has been the symbolic monument of the village since 1521. It is unique in Europe.See the stocks on the small walking tour of Braine-le-Château.

This is a rather remarkable milling museum set in a mill where the paddle wheel is operated in good weather! You will be able to learn about the mechanics of the mill as well as the equipment and tools used. There are records of a village mill in Braine-le-Château as far back as 1226. Under the Old Regime, peasants from Braine-le-Château and Haut-Ittre would come here to grind their grain and paid a tax of 1 bag out of 22 to the local lord. The site was listed as protected heritage in 1954 and the exceptional building built from arkose stone (local bricks) or granite in 1970.Discover the Moulin Banal on the small walking tour of Braine-le-Château.

In a wooded setting of Braine-le-Château stands an unusual little chapel... with an upside-down stone! Built in 1740 and restored in 1774, the Notre-Dame au Bois chapel, a single-nave sanctuary with a three-part apse, replaced, according to tradition, a little chapel on the front of which a stone bore the inscription: "S. Marie, refuge de ceux qui sont vexés de la fièvre, prie pour nous" (Holy Mary, refuge of those troubled by fever, pray for us). Thanks to, or because of, a somewhat distracted mason during the reconstruction of the chapel, you will find this stone… but upside-down! Mass is presently celebrated there every Friday of Lent at 9 am. Every year at Braine-le-Château, on the Sunday, 2 July or the following Sunday, the procession of Notre-Dame-au-Bois is also held, bringing together the President of the 'Cavaliers de Notre-Dame-au-Bois', farmers on horseback, the Sainte Lucie band, and the statue of Notre-Dame-au-Bois that follows the Blessed Sacrament. The faithful bring up the rear.

Dedicated to Saint Rémy who baptized Clovis, king of the Franks, at the end of the 5th century, this church in Ittre in Roman Païs became the setting for a treasure entrusted to it by the last nuns of Aywières fleeing the French Revolution... The present edifice (1898), in Neo-Romanesque ogival style, incorporates the Gothic chapel of Notre Dame d'Ittre, which dates from 1590, in the northern side-aisle. This replaced the previous one, dating from 1351. Inside, the extraordinary pictorial decoration recalls some Romanesque churches of France (in particular the medallions devoted to the 12 apostles, with an extremely rare depiction of Judas). The amazing vaults with their integrated iron framework, according to the method of Gustave Eiffel, and the ciborium (canopy above the altar) in polychrome wood lend a distinguished note to the entire edifice. The oak statue of Notre-Dame of Ittre, in the old chapel, was venerated throughout the ages. It is originally from Bois-Seigneur-Isaac, a village close to Nivelles, and dates from approximately 1270. During the plague of 1336, Notre-Dame de Bois-Seigneur-Isaac was carried through the region from village to village in the hope of stopping the pestilence. When the epidemic ended, Ittre no longer wanted to return the statue, believed to be miraculous, and built a chapel for it. The stained glass windows of Notre-Dame of Ittre illustrate this story and that of the pilgrimage that began in 1336. Saint Remy Church also has an interesting treasury, given to it by the last nuns of Aywières fleeing the French Revolution. Among the items saved is the shrine of Saint Lutgardis, a nun of the Cistercian abbey of Aywières deceased in 1246. It is a 1624 piece from Liège in repoussé silver. But the treasury also contains the wooden shrine of Saint Sybille de Cages (1643), as well as a reliquary of the True Cross from the 15th century. If you are curious and attentive, you may find in the façade of the present church a little rosary cross, placed there by a worker from Ittre who participated in the construction of the building...

"Elevated to" the lock with the second greatest drop in Belgium, lock 5F of Ittre in Walloon Brabant, entrance to the inclined plane (“plan incline”) of Ronquières and to the old hydraulic lifts, a Unesco tangible heritage site, offers visitors its page of history, but also a full assortment of outdoor and sporting activities. The canal from Charleroi to Brussels, opened in 1832, is the result of a long history going back to the 16th century during the reign of Philip II. The idea of connecting the basin of the Meuse to that of the Schelde by a navigable canal starting from Brussels originated in this era. The essential aim of the initiators was to open up Hainaut and consequently to promote the economic boom of the capital by serving the coal mines in the best way possible. Today, the canal is a gateway to France, Holland and Germany. While it is true that lock 5F in Ittre, with the inclined plane of Ronquières and the present Charleroi canal upstream, have allowed passage of 1350 tonne barges since 1968, it nonetheless retains the vestiges of the former disused 70-tonne canal and the second 300-tonne canal. A testimony to the past, they have been preserved from being filled in and the locks have kept – through nostalgia?- the suffix F that was affixed to distinguish them from those already in use at the time. As a follow-up to this short history, it is interesting to note that the significant movements of water and subsequent waves caused by the various locks have been attenuated by the development of expansions upstream and downstream of the lock. And it is right in the expansion upstream that the Ittre marina has been situated, bringing with it a whole range of activities, from a number of aquatic sports to more peaceful walks in a pastoral environment. And that’s not all… lock F5 also houses the Royal Marine Cadet Corps, an association sponsored by the Belgian Department of Defence. It is in this auspicious environment for nautical sport that young people, supervised by civilian and military volunteers receive training mainly focused on nautical, but also land-based, activities.