Muziekbos
A beech wood on the Muziekberg with a Geuzentoren tower, a Bronze Age burial mound and a name that has nothing to do with music.
The Muziekbos lies on and around the flank of the Muziekberg, a 150-metre outlier hill in the south of East Flanders. The wood covers 52 hectares and joins the 57-hectare Sint-Pietersbos. And no, the name has nothing to do with music: the "Muz" comes from the Celtic word for "marsh", a soggy patch of ground between streams.
On the highest point stands the Geuzentoren, a round tower from 1864 built in ironstone. A stone's throw away lies a prehistoric burial mound from the Bronze Age. In the burial chamber at the centre of the mound, two urns were found with the cremated bones of a man and a woman, ashes and charcoal. History enough, then, for a stop with your 2CV.
The Muziekbos is a beech wood replanted after the First World War. Through careful thinning and felling it is slowly being turned into a mixed deciduous wood of beech, cherry, oak and ash. Meanwhile nuthatch, fox, tawny owl, buzzard, black woodpecker and roe deer live here, along with butterflies such as the comma, the peacock and the speckled wood. The bullhead still lives in the Trochbeek in the Sint-Pietersbos, and on the restored heath with gorse on top of the Muziekberg you find the blue-winged grasshopper and the green tiger beetle.
The wood is freely accessible on the footpaths. The signposted walking routes "Boshyacintenpad" (1.4 km), "Geuzentorenpad" (2 km), "Muziekbosroute" (10.2 km) and "Taalgrenswandelroute T3" (12.8 km) wind through the wood. Park your little goat, pick a loop and come in spring: the wood is then carpeted with bluebells.
