Blegny-Mine is one of the few places in Europe where you can still go down a real coal mine in the lift cage, with former miners as your guides. The mine, in the Pays de Herve northeast of Liège, closed in 1980, and it was soon turned into a museum, with guided tours that take you down to galleries tens of metres underground, where you can see the machinery, the narrow seams and the conditions in which miners worked. In 2012, it was listed by UNESCO as one of the four Major Mining Sites of Wallonia, along with Grand-Hornu, Bois-du-Luc and Bois du Cazier. It is a powerful reminder of how coal built the industrial wealth of Belgium, and at what cost.
The Pays de Herve is a surprisingly green and pastoral area, with rolling hills, hedges, orchards and pastures dotted with farms. It is famous for its cheese, Herve, a soft, pungent cheese with a reddish rind, and for sirop de Liège, a thick, sticky spread made from apples and pears, eaten on bread or with cheese. The landscape is a patchwork of small fields bordered by hedges, a rare example of bocage in Belgium.
The riding is pleasant, with narrow, winding roads through the hills, past farms and villages, with views over the countryside. Traffic is moderate, but watch for tractors, cows and mud on the roads. To the north, the Meuse valley at Visé has some nice curves along the river, and to the east, the Voer region, a Flemish enclave between Wallonia and the Netherlands, has quiet roads and great views. The weather is changeable, with rain possible at any time.
Blegny, with nearly thirteen thousand inhabitants, has fuel, shops and restaurants, and the mine has a café where you can get a drink and a snack. Liège, about fifteen kilometres away, is a lively city with plenty of food and accommodation. Try boulets à la liégeoise, meatballs in a sweet and sour sauce made with sirop de Liège, with fries, or a Liège waffle, with crunchy pearl sugar. A local beer, such as Jupiler, brewed in Liège, is the classic drink, once the riding is done.