アウト・ヘフェルレーのおすすめウォーキング＆ハイキングルート

Beautiful in all seasons!

The Warandevijver pond was built by order of the Duke of Arenberg some 300 years ago. At that time, Meerdaalwoud was the dukes' hunting grounds. A "warande" (warden) often refers to a (closed) hunting area and/or open space where game was kept. It's a lovely picnic bench where I used to picnic with my parents decades ago.

off the beaten track of the Meerdael forest

Beautiful nature (all wild flowers in bloom) - Not a living soul to be seen - Concluded with a visit to the Delvaux brewery - Top 💥💥

beautiful forest chapel

Duke Charles III de Croy (1560-1612) had the Arenberg Castle moated, the park laid out and the avenue to Leuven extended at the end of the 16th century. A memorial stone was built into the right side wall of the Cantine to commemorate the construction of the avenue to Leuven in 1596. In the 18th century, when the castle and the park were owned by the Arenberg family, the entire domain was enclosed by a wall. The moat around the castle was also filled in. This resulted in a significant change to the terrain, which was originally very marshy. Nevertheless, the structure that Charles III de Croy gave to the landscape around 1600 is still clearly recognisable. The whole of gardens, orchards and outbuildings was then arranged around two main axes, which corresponded to the axes of the castle: an (approximately) north-south avenue, from the Terbank leper colony to the Meerdaal forest that served the Croys as a private hunting domain, and an east-west avenue, which extended from the Celestine Priory, the Croys' family mausoleum, past the new stable buildings to the entrance gate right on the city walls, opposite the Namur Gate. The construction of these straight avenues, bordered by palisades, for kilometres long, had forced the Duke to purchase important land and then to carry out major earthworks: hills were dug away – such as the hill on which the old Romanesque Saint-Lambert church stood, which was desecrated as a result – and holes and pits were filled in. Duke Charles Marie Raymond of Arenberg had a ‘jardin anglois’ built in 1771 to his own design, with the Yellow House as the focal point of the picturesque garden, a pavilion on a hill to the southeast of the castle, and with many remarkable exotic tree species such as a Lebanon cedar (Cedrus libanii) that was brought over from Edingen. The historical value of the Arenberg Park is formed by the connection with the Arenberg Castle and the other buildings located there. Inventory of Immovable Heritage: Arenberg Park, https://id.erfgoed.net/erfgoedobjecten/302524

across the lawn you can see the castle of Arenberg Leuven

Enjoy the peace and quiet itself.