We visited the Blegny coal mine on a day trip from Aachen. Blegny is a small village near the Belgian-German border, about 10 km from Liège and 30 km from Aachen. At its closure in 1980, the Blegny mine was the oldest and last operating mine in the region. Preserved are the headframe and the coal washing plant from the 20th Century, the building and pithead of the older Marie mine, and underground shafts and galleries. Blegny is the only of the four parts of the WHS, where an underground tour is available. The tour starts with a short film about the history of the Blegny mine and the mining region. Then, equipped with a helmet and a miners coat, we took the original elevator to a level 30 metres below ground. Actually, the elevator is a two-story cage, small and narrow, thus you should not suffer from claustrophobia.

Regular tours are only in French and Dutch, but there are audioguides in English and German. The guided tour provides information on the history of mining, from the tough working conditions 200 years ago to the automated production methods in the late 20th Century. Our guide was a former miner, he had a lot to tell, his explanations were always much longer and seemed to be more amusing than the text on my audioguide. Unfortunately, my French is not good enough to understand all his anecdotes and jokes. We walked along the mining gallery and went down to a level of 60 metres below ground, then we took the elevator to the top of the shaft tower. Above ground we visited the conveyor belts, the coal washing plant and the facilities for the further transport of the coal. These devices are in the most remarkable construction of the mine, a large building of red brick with metal frames, built in the 1940s. The entire tour lasts about 1.5 hours and we enjoyed it very much. However, I like to visit mining sites and industrial heritage.

The building of the Marie mine is the oldest part of the site and houses the worth seeing mining museum. It is much larger than it appears from the outside and shows an abundance of machines and devices, including the showers of the miners. We spent almost two hours there.

You can also climb the mine heap and have a panoramic view of the pit and the region, but we skipped that because it started to rain when we finished our tour. There are also several attractions for children: playgrounds, a road-train, miniature golf, a small animal park, aviaries. That's not to my taste, but it obviously helps to draw interest of children to the industrial heritage.

All in all a worthwhile day trip, in particular if you like to visit mining sites.