LIÈGE 219E Musée d’Art Moderne et
d’Art Contemporain (MAMAC)
Parc de la Boverie 3. Tel (04)
1–6pm Tue–Sat, 11am–
4:30pm Sun. & http://www.mamac.be
Handsomely housed in a
grand Neo-Classical building
that was completed in 1905,
MAMAC stands on the south-
ern tip of the Outremeuse
island. A collection of nearly
1,000 works of art, dating from
the late 19th century onwards,
is presented on a rotating
basis. It includes work by
Belgian artists such as Theo
van Rysselberghe, Fernand
Khnopff, Émile Claus, James
Ensor, Constant Permeke
and Rik Wouters (see p73),
as well as such inter national
luminaries as Pissarro, Signac,
Gauguin, Kokoschka, Monet,
Picasso and Chagall.
E Maison de la Métallurgie
et de l’Industrie
Boulevard Raymond-Poincaré 17.
Tel (04) 3426563. # Apr–Oct:
9am–5pm Mon–Fri, 2–6pm Sat–Sun;
Nov–Mar: 9am–5pm Mon–Fri.
& - http://www.mmil.be
Located on the site of an old
metal work factory dating from
1845, this museum is the best
place to gauge Liège’s history
as an industrial centre. Steam
power was first used by tex-
tile mills in nearby Verviers
(see p222), and the iron-and-
steel-indus try developed at
Seraing, outside Liège, where
Belgium’s first rail way engines
were built in the 1830s. The
museum displays equip ment
and machinery spanning four
centuries, such as forges, iron-
furnaces, steam engines and
hydraulic hammers.
P Gare de Liège-Guillemins
Place des Guillemins 2. Tel (04)- http://www.euro-liege-tgv.be
In 1843, a link was forged
between Liège and Aachen, in
Germany, making the Gare de
Liège-Guillemins the world’s
first international railway
sta tion. Opened in 2009, it
forms a major hub on the inter-
na tional TGV high-speed train
network. To mark the
station’s significance, Liège
commissioned award-winning
Spanish-Catalan architect
Santiago Calatrava to redesign
it as an eye-catching landmark.
It is a huge, stunning confec -
tion of curv ing steel and glass,
a breath tak ing introduction to
GEORGES SIMENON
Belgium’s bestselling author of all time, Georges Simenon
(1903–89) was born in Liège, at Rue Léopold 24. When he
was two, his family moved across the river to Outremeuse,
to a street now renamed Rue Simenon. He trained as a jour-
nalist and wrote his first novel in 1919, before heading off
to Paris, in 1922, at the age of 19. He went on to write some
350 novels and novellas, translated into many languages;
75 of them feature his most famous creation, the French
detective Inspector Maigret, who first appeared in 1931.
Maigret reached an even wider
audience through the many French
feature films based on the novels.
After World War II, Simenon lived
in the USA and in Switzerland,
but Liège continued to occupy his
imagination and he set a number
of his novels here. The total
number of Simenon books printed
is thought to be about 550 million.
The city’s tourist office has a leaflet
on the Simenon Trail, which links
sites in the Coeur Historique and
the Outremeuse districts that are
connected to his life.Historic industrial tools at the Maison de la Métallurgie et de l’Industriethe city, where visitors immed-
iately get a sense of Liège’s
newly reinvigorated dynamism.Georges Simenon, alias
The Man with the PipeStern façade of the Musée d’Art
Moderne et d’Art Contemporain
E Cristal Park
6 km (4 miles) SW of Liège,
Esplanade du Val, Seraing. Tel (04)
10am–5pm daily. &
7 0 = http://www.cristalpark.com
The Cristallerie du Val St
Lambert, a famous glass-
manufacturer established in
1826, has its headquarters at
Cristal Park and the Château
du Val St-Lambert. There is a
glass workshop where visitors
can observe glass being
blown, cut and engraved, a
museum and a showroom
displaying glass for sale.