Sitting in an artificial lake within a vast manicured park, the Château de Belœil is a regal country palace-house, immodestly seeing itself as the Belgian Versailles. Inside it’s packed with classical furniture and portraiture relevant to the princes ‘de Ligne’, whose scion, Eugène de Ligne (1804–80), turned down the chance to be Belgian king in 1831. An audioguide explains things in detail, but the interior somehow lacks majesty.
TEC bus 81 goes from the train station at Ath to Belœil (€3.20, 25 minutes) roughly hourly weekdays, less often on Saturday, and not at all on Sunday.
