Some 40 kms southeast of Brussels in the Brabant Wallon lie the ruins of the Cistercian Abbey of Villers.

The abbey was abandoned already in 1796 so the site has been in ruins for a while. As an insult to injury, in 1855 the Leuven-Charleroi railway line was built through the garden.

The abbey tour begins at the info desk with an adjoining museum shop. After the reception desk, an elevator or stairs lead up to the walkway level that takes you over the road and inside the abbey walls. Another lift that takes you down to the ground level and off you go.

 

The abbey, or the ruins to be precise, are a model example of an accessible tourist attraction. Despite few uneven surfaces and the hill garden, the abbey site is accessible with a wheelchair. This enables people with limited mobility to move around easily, but makes it also easy to visit with prams and small children.

Our visit took place on a quiet Thursday, so there were very few visitors.

Here for the beers

Being an abbey and in Belgium, the Villers Abbey brews its own beers. Villers is one of the few non-trappist abbeys who actually brew their beer within the abbey walls, not just under supervision of monks, as is often the case.

There are 4 types of beers:

• Abbaye de Villers V Authentique, light blonde(5,0%)
• Abbaye de Villers IX, triple (9%)
• La Ténébreuse, bitter, 8%
• La Lumineuse, blonde ale, 6.5%

Abbaye de Villers
Rue de l’Abbaye, 55
1495 Villers-la-Ville
Belgium