Lier, the Little Bruges of Belgium

Lier has an amazing number of sights for a town of its size. It has been nicknamed the "Little Bruges", or Lierke Plezierke "Little Pleasure Lier" or else Pallierterstad "town of Pallieter".

The inhabitants of Lier also earned the teasing nickname "sheep's heads" (schappekopen in Flemish) for choosing a cattle market over a university when asked which one they wished for.

Lier has its late-medieval Grote Markt, town square with a sumptuous Flemish-Rococo-style town hall and a an adjoining belfry. The Brabantine Gothic collegiate church dedicated to St Gummarus, the town's patron saint, also sits on the town square.

You should also visit the the "L'horloge du centenaire" or in English "The centenary clock". Referring to the history the creator Louis Zimmer born in Lier, spent five years of his life to the realisation of the clock. In 1930, he presented it to Lier, on the occasion of the 100 anniversary of the independence of Belgium. The clock was installed in the restored medieval Cornelius Tower, at which time it was renamed the Zimmer Tower. Zimmer was aware of the ignorance of the general public in the field of astronomy, which led him to create the astronomical studio in 1932. A mechanism of remarkable precision allows us to observe at a glance, the cosmos and the solar system.

The centenary clock gives 13 indications of different times:

• official time

• the lunar cycle

• the equation of time

• the zodiac

• the solar cycle and Sunday letters

• the days of the week

• the terrestrial globe

• months

• dates

• seasons

• tides

• the age of the moon

• the phases of the moon

This clock contains the slowest moving mechanical hand in the world: one rotation per 25,800 years together with the precession of the Earth.

The clock was later exhibited in New York, where it impressed Einstein!!