Saint John the Baptist at the Béguinage

This guide to Saint John the Baptist at the Beguinage in Brussels opens in October 1998, when residents began sleeping inside the church in protest after the death of Semira Adamu, a young asylum seeker, during a police deportation attempt. It then reaches back to the beguines, independent laywomen who built a walled community here in the twelve hundreds and rebuilt their Baroque church in stone after Calvinist soldiers tore it down in 1584. Look up at the facade's hexagonal towers, called among the finest in Belgium, before you step inside.