The tour du millénaire ( French for ''tower of the millennium'') is a vantage point built in 2001 in

Gedinne Gedinne (; ) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Namur, Belgium. On 1 January 2006 the municipality had 4,405 inhabitants. The total area is , giving a population density of . It is situated in the Ardennes east of Meuse ...

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

just meters away from the French border. The tower consists of two tripods fitted together (one upright, one upside down) with three different viewing platforms (at 15 m, 30 m and 45 m). The total height of the tower (including the spire) is 60 m. The legs of the tripods are the stems of

Douglas-fir The Douglas fir (''Pseudotsuga menziesii'') is an evergreen conifer species in the pine family, Pinaceae. It is the tallest tree in the Pinaceae family. It is native to western North America and is also known as Douglas-fir, Douglas spruce, Or ...

trees found in the surrounding forest, held together by a steel construction. It tops the plateau of the Croix-Scaille, a forest of around 90 square kilometres that was used by the

Resistance during World War II During World War II, resistance movements operated in German-occupied Europe by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation to propaganda, hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns. In many countries, r ...

. The plateau is at 503 m the highest point in the

Ardennes The Ardennes ( ; ; ; ; ), also known as the Ardennes Forest or Forest of Ardennes, is a region of extensive forests, rough terrain, rolling hills and ridges primarily in Belgium and Luxembourg, extending into Germany and France. Geological ...

(excluding the

High Fens The High Fens (; ; ), which were declared a Nature reserve, nature reserve in 1957, are an upland area, a Plateau, plateau region in Liège Province, in the east of Belgium and adjoining parts of northwestern Germany, between the Ardennes and the ...

which is sometimes defined as being in the Ardennes) and the fourth highest summit in Belgium. The tower was dismantled due to woodrot on 7 July 2008, and reopened after restoration on 5 July 2012.

References

External links

Designing architects
* Buildings and structures celebrating the third millennium Towers in Belgium Ardennes Gedinne {{Belgium-struct-stub