Loop hike in Leffe: discovering 3 villages and meeting… the nutons!

This circular hiking trail in Leffe begins at the foot of the famous Leffe Abbey. Although the loop is only 17 km long, it offers an elevation gain of nearly 300 meters .

Let's be clear from the start: the area is not flat.

The Abbey gates are still closed this early in the morning. In any case, a visit to the site is not on the agenda. A large parking lot next to the Abbey is the official starting point of the route.

Through woods and fields, he takes us to discover three villages : Loyers, Lisogne and Awagne.

On the way back, we will encounter two seemingly opposing worlds: that of the Leffe quarry and the Devant-Bouvignes nature reserve.

Warning: rain can make some sections particularly muddy, or even slippery at times. 

One last thing before hitting the road: the route passes by a hideout frequented by nutons (goblins). If you're afraid of them, avoid this hike 🙂 

The loop hike starts in Leffe 

From the parking lot, we walk slightly up the road that runs alongside the abbey, to the right. Where it makes a sharp left turn, we follow the GR marker on Himmer Street. 

Although it is a two-way street, Himmer Street is narrow and the sidewalks are accordingly narrow. The neighborhood is densely built: on the left, the houses cling to the hillside.

Less than 500 meters from the start, a sign indicates that we are approaching a group of workers' houses, built at the end of the 19th century at the initiative of the Leffe Textile Factory. The fabric has long since ceased to be spun in the area: the houses are its only remaining legacy. 

Just after this sign, we leave Himmer Street: on the right, a path leads into a wood. Before reaching it, we cross the Fonds de Leffe stream. We will encounter it again later.

The path ahead climbs. Not too steeply, but for a long time. The houses quickly recede, shrinking as we ascend. This pleasant path is little known.

When we reach the summit, at the edge of the woods, a house comes into view on the right. The path disappears into a grassy field. We head towards the left corner of the building. There, near a brick high-voltage substation, a relic of the last century, we find a path again.

The only option is to go down it, on the left. To the right, it becomes private. This path is lined with young trees and leads us back to Saint-Jacques Street.

Meeting the nutons and Chession Castle

Upon reaching the vicinity of a funeral home, the road turns right towards Rue Saint-Jacques. We prefer the country lane, which heads off to the left uphill.

This path quickly leads us into the countryside.

As it veers more sharply to the right, heading towards a water tower, we forget it: a path calls to us on our left. It leads to a wood, which it skirts on the right.

Here we are: the nutons' holes are visible. As for the nutons themselves, that's another matter. Without waiting for them to deign to show themselves, we continue on our way. 

Shortly after passing the nutons and their holes, the path enters the woods, descending. The last part of the descent is particularly steep, and it can be more difficult to navigate in wet weather.

We reach a paved road and rejoin Himmer Street and the Fonds de Leffe stream. Turning left, we pass the Chession castle (private) and then another house.

After passing this second residence, we turn right: a path awaits us, as well as nearly a kilometer of coastline.

From Loyers to Lisogne, from one farm to another

At the end of this long and slow climb, we leave the last trees of the woods to emerge onto one of the streets of the village of Loyers : the rue de Froidin. We follow it, turning right.

We only skirt the village of Loyers. Very quickly, we leave it behind, crossing meadows. Very quickly, too, a second village welcomes us: Lisogne .We enter it near an imposing farm.

We bypass the village via Rue du Forbo, alongside a thick stone wall.  We continue along Rue du Centre, passing between the church and the village cemetery.

Shortly before leaving the village, a path beckons us to the left. As this path curves to the left, we leave it just before reaching a water reservoir. A stony track now guides us through the countryside.

We are leaving Lisogne. 

Towards Awagne through the countryside

We successively ignore two other country lanes on the right. And we follow the paved road when it makes a sharp left turn, just after the second fork.

Further on, a crossroads appears, where old hangars struggle to stay upright on their pillars. The place is hardly suitable for a picnic, given the amount of junk and wreckage of all kinds littering the ground.

Having left behind this remnant of agricultural activity, we cross the main road and enter a path between two hedges. This area can be muddy in wet weather, slowing our progress. 

Watch out for the holes! This time, it's not nutons… probably badgers. You're no more likely to see them than you were the nutons before.

At the level of a house furnished with a pretty farmyard, the path joins another. We take the left.

At the next junction, at the entrance to the village of Awagne, we take the right-hand path this time and enter Rue Saint-Quentin. This leads towards the church.

Having arrived near the religious building, we head straight ahead towards the Massennes grocery store, along the path of the same name.

At the next intersection, we turn right onto a street that goes uphill: the Comognes path.

Successively, this path makes a bend to the left and then the next one to the right, before moving away from the houses and heading towards the Comognes woods.

A maze through the Comognes woods 

The forest path descends slightly. After barely 300 meters, we opt for another path, which branches off to our left.

At the next fork, we go right and then straight ahead, ignoring all side roads.

The path leads to a paved road, not far from a crossroads. We turn left and stay on this road, which is sometimes quite degraded, ignoring all the paths that beckon us to the right or left.

The road leaves the woods behind and crosses meadows and fields. On the left, we see an imposing farmhouse. We walk until we reach it.

Or almost: a stony path invites us to follow it to the right, across the field.

Straight ahead, it leads us towards the Leffe quarry, whose stony tailings we quickly identify.

Return via Devant-Bouvignes, the quarry and the nature reserve 

After walking a good kilometer along this country road, we can more clearly see the quarry, its rubble and its signs warning of the danger of blasting. 

Where the road makes a 90° left turn, a barrier discourages continuing straight ahead. This prohibition does not apply to pedestrians: this barrier marks the entrance to the Devant-Bouvignes nature reserve, a Natura 2000 site.

We do not enter the nature reserve and continue along the road.

This one has the particularity of marking a boundary between the mining operation, on the left, and the nature reserve, on the right.

We continue our walking route alongside the road, which brings us closer and closer to the quarry. We ignore the two paths that branch off to the left into the nature reserve.

However, a little further on, we leave the path to enter the nature reserve, at the cost of turning right twice in a row.

The change of scenery is radical.

This path, winding along the hillside, leads us back towards Leffe through a pleasant landscape. We can see the Meuse below and, on the other bank, the village of Bouvignes.

After passing alongside an impressive dry stone wall, the path joins a road: we continue the descent, to the right, towards the Abbey of Notre Dame de Leffe and our starting point.