BEAUVECHAIN : The Countryside, Heritage and Museums

Endless fields of grain, sugar beet, rippling ranks of maize, flax, rape seed and potatoes, weave a carpet of changing colors that vanishes only at the end of autumn, giving way to deep furrows of rich and promising soil. The chapels watch over this broad panorama, transected here and there by a hedge or block of timber, and their bells punctuate its vast silence.

The fertile Brabant soil has always been cherished, and farmers and craftsmen have labored over centuries to sculpt the gentle landscape and create its noble buildings. Today's brick and stone are tangible evidence of the toil of generations of men and women, all of whom helped to enrich the countryside and the communities they lived in. Stately manor farms, with vast barns, stand like sentinels in the valleys and on the broad horizon. Church spires-slender or bulbous-rise above clusters of rooftops.

Agricultural History Museum

The windmill, bereft of its sails, still tells of the tireless labor of country folk. Today, its brick tower shelters a small collection of objects that reflect the rural life of times past. At its foot, disposed on the grass and inside a cart-shed, are wonderfully preserved examples of 19^th- and 20^th- century agricultural equipment.