Tournai Travel Guide
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72km (45 miles) SW of Brussels; 43km (27 miles) NW of Mons
During medieval and Renaissance times, Tournai, a historic and beautiful town that's the second oldest in Belgium (after Tongeren), maintained a position of prominence in Europe as an ecclesiastical center. Its importance in even more ancient centuries was forgotten, however, until 1653, when a workman, quite by chance, opened the tomb of Childeric, king of the Franks -- whose son, Clovis, founded the Merovingian dynasty that ruled for nearly 3 centuries. This led to the discovery that Tournai's predecessor at this major crossroads on the River Scheldt, an early Roman settlement known as Tornacum, was the first capital of the Frankish empire. The tomb also yielded breathtaking royal treasures -- the best of which, sadly, are now in Paris.
In World War II, a full 60% of the town's buildings were destroyed -- it can only be deemed a miracle that the great cathedral emerged with little damage. Tournai still has magnificent works of art and architecture, the legacy of its painters, sculptors, goldsmiths, tapestry weavers, and porcelain craftsmen. Today, Tournai greets you with glorious monuments that are once more intact, and with its past recaptured so completely that the scars of conflict are scarcely visible.
