Modave Castle

Modave stands on the edge of a limestone cliff sixty metres above the Hoyoux, rebuilt in the 1650s and 1660s by the Count of Marchin as a country house rather than a fortress, and the interiors are the point: about twenty rooms with stucco ceilings, tapestries, painted panels and period furniture, including a hall with an elaborate plaster ceiling showing the family tree. Its wider claim is technical: in 1667 Rennequin Sualem built a water wheel and pumping system here to raise water from the river sixty metres to the castle, and that installation was studied and used as the model for the Machine de Marly that supplied the fountains at Versailles. The park runs along the cliff and down to the river with marked walks.

What you actually see

• Stucco ceilings and tapestries - about twenty furnished seventeenth-century rooms.
• The family tree ceiling - the plasterwork in the great hall.
• The Sualem pumping story - the wheel that inspired the Machine de Marly.
• The cliff and park - sixty metres above the Hoyoux with river walks.

When to go

April to October; it closes for the winter. Two to three hours with the park. Weekdays are quiet. Autumn colour in the valley below is good.

Honest expectations

It closes entirely for much of the winter. Interpretation is in French with limited English. The pumping installation itself no longer exists and is explained rather than shown. Public transport is poor.

Nearby

Huy is north on the Meuse; the Condroz runs south.