GREAT BÉGUINAGE

The district is a veritable city within the city, extending over more than 7 hectares, making the Leuven beguinage the largest in Belgium. Listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site, the large beguinage was founded in 1232, but the church dates from the ^14th century and most of the buildings from the ^17th century (from the ^16th century onwards, the clay houses were rebuilt in brick). The small canals that run through it add to the magic of the place. The district stretches along the banks of the Dyle, which can be crossed by small bridges. From the cobbled alleyways to the splendid red-brick facades of the small houses and the windowed sandstone: everything here seems to have remained frozen. The St-Pauwel house (Middenstraat 65), built in 1634, is a perfect, if unrepresentative, example. This house with garden was reserved for the wealthiest beguines. Around 1600, some 300 beguines lived here in community, chastely, devoutly, but without making any final vows. They kept their own possessions and provided for their own needs. The University of Leuven, which bought the complex in the 1960s, converted the small houses into rooms for visiting students and professors. Finally, a visit to the beguinage would be incomplete without its pious past. To do so, visit the Gothic church. Unrivalled in its simplicity, the building has no tower, transept or ambulatory, but impresses with its intimate lighting provided by a beautiful double lancet window.