Collecting World Heritage Sites sometimes takes you to places you never would have intended to go to. But by still doing so you can be sure that there is always a fascinating story to be told. So during a trip in June 2004 to Belgium and the Wallonian area I decided to visit the “Hydraulic boat lifts of La Louviére and Le Roeulx in the district of Hainault”, one of the still quite few industrial historical sites listed on the World Heritage List and my personal 137th site.

One might wonder what a boat lift is but it’s really not more complicated than it sounds. The principle is simple: two bathtubs wherein you place one barge each and then you fill one of them with slightly more water than the other and the first bathtub will push the second one upwards through hydraulic power.

The real question is WHY and the story goes that in this once prosperous area of coal mining, transportation – before the train - was only possible on water and the canal du Centre was build - A proud national canal that was making its way through a landscape with rolling hills not entirely suited for canals. And the only way to overcome the landscapes difficulties then was of course to build - boat lifts!

Having been welcomed in La Louviére by a grandiose thunderstorm and forced to spend an hour in the train station’s bar, I wandered off to where I was supposed to find the first lift, a majestic construction of steel and bricks looking like it was guarding the canal. While checking it out, a second thunderstorm hit the area forcing me again to take shelter from the rain, but then enabling me to study the lift closely for just maybe slightly longer than I had first anticipated. Next time I will bring an umbrella...

There are four boat lifts on this stretch of the Canal du Centre and all of them were built during the early 20th century and it’s said that they were quite a wonder of engineering at its time. The lifts are still used today but only during the summer and then for tourist purposes only. Industrial transportation on canals is still done today though using a new, far deeper and wider canal dug a couple of kilometers to the north of the old Canal du Centre

Having seen the first lift made me quite impressed so I decided to follow and walk along the canal to see the three other lifts, a 4-kilometer promenade along the canal for a few hours. Overall, the lifts are interesting and the area is nice and I’ve probably never visited it in my life if it haven't been for the World Heritage List…