Tournai - Grand'Place

On the west side of the square rises the 72m/236ft-high belfry, the oldest bell-tower in Belgium. The first four stories were built in 1200 and completed in 1294 with the topmost story and the spire. After a fire in 1391 the tower was rebuilt; the first carillon was mounted in 1392 of which two of the 43 bells of the present ring remain.

The tower is a UNESCO site.

The Musée de Folklore is accommodated in a house with twin gables dating from 1673 (Maison Tournaissienne) not far from the cloth hall; it is devoted to customs and handicrafts of the town and its rural surroundings. Particularly charming are the many rooms reminiscent of the past with puppets and original features, such as a shoemaker's workshop, a woolworkers' workshop (so-called "baloitil"), a farm kitchen and a printing press. On the second floor there is a large model of Tournai in the year 1701.

The most recent museum in the town, opened in 1990, can be found in the Place Reine Astrid; it is concerned with carpet weaving which has been carried on in Tournai since the 15th C. It not only tells the story of the craft and exhibits old examples, but visitors can also watch a carpet being made in the workshop.

From the belfry Rue Saint-Martin leads west and from it an archway opens into the courtyard of the Abbey of Saint-Martin (1642-1701), founded in the 11th C., the largest Benedictine abbey in Belgium before the French Revolution. In one wing is accommodated the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle (Natural History Museum) which is principally notable for a fine collection of birds; the palace of the abbots, a work of Dewez from 1743, is now the headquarters of the town administration.