Discover La Louvière: Canal, Art and Industrial Heritage

La Louvière combines the unique technological history of the Canal du Centre with museums, street art, ceramic art and a wide range of leisure activities. Those planning a trip can choose between a culturally oriented stay, walks by the water and active hours at Le Point d’Eau. When looking for a holiday apartment in La Louvière, it is therefore worth deciding on your preferred daily rhythm: Should industrial heritage be the focus, would you like to discover art, or do you want to combine different activities?

Historic boat lifts and the Canal du Centre

The Canal du Centre runs through La Louvière and is also an important part of the city’s history. Its four hydraulic boat lifts are the only ones in the world that have been preserved in their original working condition. This technological heritage can be combined with the canal’s present-day use: The Canal du Centre is used for recreational boating, and walks lead along its tree-lined banks. Boat trips are also available.

This creates different options for planning your trip. You can dedicate a day to the industrial heritage, plan a trip on the water or choose the canal as a peaceful contrast to museums and exploring the city. The combination of technological history, waterside paths and recreational boating makes the Canal du Centre a distinctive starting point for exploring La Louvière.

Art, printmaking and ceramics

The Centre de la Gravure et de l’Image imprimée focuses on printmaking and the art of printing. Its collection comprises around 17,000 works by more than 2,400 Belgian and international artists. The printmaking and typography workshops provide professional equipment and support for an introduction, regular work or the realization of an artistic project. This makes the venue interesting not only for a museum visit, but also for travellers who would like to engage more deeply with artistic techniques.

Another defining venue is Keramis, a ceramics museum and arts centre on the site of the former Boch faience factory. Three former bottle kilns of the Boch faience factory are located there. They are used as exhibition spaces for contemporary ceramic artists and as an educational venue. In this way, the industrial past, applied art and contemporary ceramic works come together.

In the centre of La Louvière, the Centre Daily-Bul & C° preserves and develops the archives of Daily-Bul as an art and archive centre. In addition, the 3.5-kilometre Street Art Tour leads to murals, sculptures, artworks and museums. Those travelling with different interests can thus create a varied stay combining exhibitions, urban spaces and historical topics.

Water experiences and special traditions

Le Point d’Eau offers an Olympic-size swimming pool, group classes, a learner pool, slides, a wild-water river, a wave pool and a Surf Rider. Alongside the cultural programme, this provides a distinctly different focus for a holiday. In changeable weather, or on a trip that is intended to combine active hours with museum visits, this offer can complement the daily itinerary.

The Laetare Carnival has its own distinctive cultural character. It is a tradition more than one hundred years old and lasts for three days and three nights. Those interested in regional customs will find in this festival another way of engaging with La Louvière’s identity. The Musée de la Mine et du Développement Durable du Bois-du-Luc also addresses the limits of growth and the exploitation of raw materials, the destruction and fragmentation of ecosystems, as well as pollution associated with industrial disasters. Temporary exhibitions, adult education programmes, training courses and educational workshops explore these topics.

The right accommodation for planning your trip

Tailor your search for a holiday apartment in La Louvière to whether you want to focus primarily on culture, include water experiences or combine both priorities with active hours. Those travelling with several generations can also consider a daily rhythm that accommodates different interests, rather than trying to fit all activities into one day.

Discover more places in the surrounding area

If you would like to extend your trip beyond La Louvière, you will find more places here: Honnelles, Hensies, Courcelles, Brugelette, Jurbise, Enghien, Aiseau and Manage.

To the higher-level travel overview: Hainaut.