Ixelles Ponds

This guide to the Ixelles Ponds in Brussels traces the water back to twelve oh one, when Duke Henry the First granted the marshy valley to Gisele so she could found the Cistercian abbey La Cambre, whose monks dug the original fish ponds and stocked them with carp and pike. It follows a later wave of tax-dodging brewers who set up along the shore after Duke Philip the Handsome pushed brewing outside the city walls in fifteen oh three. Listen for the street names nearby, rue de la Levure and rue de la Cuve, quiet leftovers of that brewing trade.