2nd Stage – Monday 2nd July 2012 Visé > Tournai – 207.5 km

Capital of the Lower Meuse, the only French-speaking city to have a shared border with the Netherlands, Visé is midway between Liege and Maastricht. This location has enabled it to develop its importance as a transportation hub and at the same time increase its tourist numbers thanks to a rich heritage. These include in particular the Town Hall built in the seventeenth century whose bulbous steeple rises to over thirty meters and whose chimes ring with the life of the city every quarter of an hour, the Collegiate and its Gothic choir, the Perron , once a symbol of authority of the Prince-Bishops of the Principality of Liege or even the shrine of Saint Hadelin, jewel of 11th century Mosan art. Visé, which also includes three guilds of crossbowmen and arquebusiers, is also nicknamed the City of the Goose. This relates to a traditional recipe where the bird is cooked in a vegetable stock before being covered in a garlic sauce. Market town but also a city of leisure, traditions, culture and sport, life is good in Visé.

Crossed by l’Escaut, Tournai is one of the oldest cities in Belgium. Near Brussels, Paris and London, a veritable crossroads of cultures, it has been under French, Austrian, Spanish and English control in the past. Testament to its past, the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Belfry, symbols of spiritual and temporal powers, are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. A country town (Tournai as a whole is composed of twenty-nine villages), Tournai invites you to discover the museum of Fine Art where the only two paintings by Manet are kept in Belgium. Fabulous works in a setting that is even more special since it was the only museum designed by renowned architect Victor Horta. Fourth largest city of Belgian Hainaut, Tournai invites you to stroll along the banks of the Escaut, whilst the Mont-Saint-Aubert, its highest point, is a paradise for cyclists and poets. Tournai is also part of the Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai Eurometropolis, the European grouping of territorial cooperation at the heart of a community with more than two million inhabitants.