A coal mine designed like a neoclassical palace sounds like a joke, but Grand-Hornu is real, and the man behind it meant every column. Henri De Gorge, a mining entrepreneur, took over a failing colliery at Hornu in the early nineteenth century and built, between about 1810 and 1830, a complex of workshops, offices and workers' housing around a great oval courtyard. The buildings are in pale stone and brick, with arcades, pediments and a perfect sense of proportion. De Gorge was an idealist, and he wanted his workers to live in decent houses with gardens, which was unusual in an age of slums.
The site closed with the mine in 1954 and was threatened with demolition before being rescued and restored. Today it houses the MAC's, a contemporary art museum, in the old workshops, and visitors walk around the courtyard under the arches where horses and carts once passed. It is one of the Major Mining Sites of Wallonia that UNESCO listed in 2012, and it is a good place to understand how the first generation of mine owners saw themselves as civilisers as well as employers.
This is the Borinage, a coal region in the west of Belgium that is also linked to the young Vincent van Gogh, who worked here as a lay preacher among the miners in the late 1870s, and whose first serious drawings were of the people he met. The landscape is flat and industrial in places, with the green cones of old slag heaps and rows of brick houses, and Mons, the nearby city that was European Capital of Culture in 2015, makes a good base.
The ride is not about thrills but about texture. Roads here are mostly flat, with small towns, canals and factories, and surfaces that can be bumpy, with cobbles in the older streets. The weather is changeable and often damp, and the best days are those with high cloud and cold sunshine. Spring and early autumn are agreeable.
Saint-Ghislain, a couple of kilometres away, has twenty-two thousand people, and offers fuel, supermarkets and cafés, as does Mons. Belgian frites and a glass of beer in a local café make a satisfying end to a visit.