Vresse-on-Semois

Vresse-on-Semois (in Walloon Vresse ) is a common French-speaking of Belgium located in Walloon region in the Province of Namur.

With the 1st July 2004, the total population of this commune was of 2.835 inhabitants (1 392 men and 1.443 women). The total surface area is of 101,37 km ² what gives a Population density of 27,97 inhabitants per km ².

Today and yesterday

The picturesque bridge Saint-Lambert already allured good number of painters and photographers. According to the legend, the saint would have narrowed it to prevent Sainte Agathe, the holy owner of the village close to Laforêt, to return visit to his parishioners in the barouche. What is sure, it is that Jose Chaidron, owner of the hotel Glycine towards 1920, founded l'" here; school of Vresse" , which was going to become a reference in the medium of the painters landscape designers. The hotel with the imposing white frontage shelters the tourist bureau today. In the very new arts center, on the other side of the street, one can from now on admire surroundings two hundred works of Albert Raty and Jacques Vanderelst, inter alia. The style varies as much as the quality of the collection. A wood counterpart of the oldest engine of Belgium, “the Belgian”, exit of the workshops of John Cockerill in 1835, is exposed in a small building beside the door. Local craftsmen devoted to it more than thousand work hours.

Thanks to the relief, nature remained inviolate. The steep slopes lend themselves badly to the forestry development. During the Second world war, the resistant ones to the occupant Nazi found even refuge in these wood, benefitting from their knowledge of the ground. Twenty camps of men of the maquis, forts of about thirty men each one, were established thus in the area. Many inhabitants supplied them in a clandestine way.

External bonds

Official site of the commune

The engine “the Belgian”

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