The romantic Gaasbeek Castle lies just outside Brussels in the rolling Pajottenland countryside.
Built in the middle ages, it has been attacked many times and rebuilt in various styles. In the sixteenth century, it was owned by Count Egmont, the tragic aristocrat executed on Grand’Place.
After lying abandoned for many years, Gaasbeek was acquired in the mid-eighteenth century by the Italian landowner Paul Arconati-Visconti. Its last inhabitant was Marie Peyrat, a romantic aristocrat who turned the building into a mediaeval dream castle (along with a glamorous art deco bathroom). When she died in 1923, the building was left to the Belgian state.
Now in the hands of the Flemish government, the castle was until recently closed for renovation. The work is now finished, so you can take a look around the skilfully restored mock-mediaeval interiors.
Derek Blyth’s hidden secret of the day: Derek Blyth is the author of the bestselling “The 500 Hidden Secrets of Belgium”. He picks out one of his favourite hidden secrets for The Brussels Times every day.
