Lier (a city in Belgium)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Yesterday we made a little trip to Lier to visit a museum (for free because of our Werchter wristband). Lier isn't very far from Mechelen (or Antwerp for that matter) so we went by car. We parked on a parking lot on the bank of the river Nete which has quite a strong current as we could see when we crossed it.

We could see a big church tower and some smaller towers rising above the city so we walked that way. First we walked past the Zimmertower (see review) and then past the great market to the small city museum we where going to visit. This walk already showed us some pretty medieval city sights so we were enjoying ourselves quite a lot ;-)

The Museum Wuyts-Van Campen & Baron Caroly only has about 4 rooms but is still very nice (and quite cheap if you have to pay). It's cool, quiet and you can photograph the art (as long as it's not for publication)! Ofcourse they don't have many objects or paintings but some of them are definite treasures!
They have a Bruegel painting with Flemish proverbs (this is one painted by the son, the one painted by the father is in Germany). And some extremely intense symbolist paintings by local artist Raymond de la Haye, who died in WWI after only two days at the front...
Because of our Werchter wristband we also got a Lier promotion bag with a pen, a lanyard and some leaflets with info in it, which made us even happier ;-D

By now I needed a new film so we searched for a (photo)shop near the great market which we found behind the town hall (which looks very nice by the way). There was also a little church in that street so we went in to have a look at it. It was very empty looking and very small but still nice.

We could still see the big church tower so we decided to visit that one too. It turned out to be the st-Gommarus church, an example of Brabantine Gothic style. The outside isn't very elaborate nor is the inside but it has several extremely elaborate altars! The oldest parts are from 1378 (the tower) and the whole church was finished by the 16th century. The stained glass windows from the 15/16th century are very nice and well preserved. So this church is definitely worth a visit too ;-)

After the church we went to the Zimmertower (see special review) which is very very much worth a visit ;-)
In short: we're lyrical about Lier!
For English info visit: http://www.trabel.com/lier/lier.htm (for Dutch info you can also visit www.lier.be)