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Roots Earth in Leuven: audio stories about 40 places

Roots Earth has audio stories about 40 places in Leuven, Belgium, in Europe. The Leuven stories are in all seven Roots Earth languages: English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The app needs no account: open Leuven, pick a place on the city's map of places and play. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection. The stories are written by local people.

The 40 places are listed below in the order the app shows them, and again further down with their coordinates. The lists were taken from the Roots Earth catalogue on 15 September 2026.

Published 16 September 2026. Markdown: leuven.md

The 40 places in Leuven with audio stories

In the order the app shows them.

  1. Leuven Town Hall
  2. St. Peter's Church
  3. Grote Markt
  4. Oude Markt
  5. University Library
  6. Ladeuzeplein
  7. Old University of Leuven
  8. University Hall (Lakenhal)
  9. Great Beguinage
  10. Small Beguinage
  11. M Leuven
  12. Botanical Garden (Kruidtuin)
  13. St. Michael's Church
  14. Fonske (Fons Sapientiae)
  15. Tafelrond
  16. Naamsestraat
  17. Pope's College
  18. Collegium Trilingue
  19. House of Arenberg
  20. Church of Our Lady of the Dominicans
  21. St. Quentin's Church
  22. St. James's Church
  23. City Theatre
  24. Vismarkt (Fish Market)
  25. Abbey of Park
  26. Castle of Arenberg
  27. Keizersberg Abbey
  28. Leuven Railway Station
  29. Vaartkom
  30. OPEK Arts Centre
  31. Stella Artois Brewery (De Hoorn)
  32. Sluispark
  33. St. Gertrude's Abbey
  34. Mechelsestraat
  35. Dijle Park
  36. St. Donatus Park
  37. Heverlee
  38. Heverlee Woods
  39. Arenberg Park (Heverlee)
  40. Wijgmaal

Is there an audio guide for Leuven Town Hall?

Yes. Leuven Town Hall has its audio stories in the Roots Earth app: a short introduction and a deeper story, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian.

It is place 1 of the 40 Leuven places in the app, at 50.87889, 4.70111. Every one of the other 39 places in the list above has the same two stories.

Roots Earth is not a guided tour: you choose the place on the city's map of places and play its story yourself.

How to use Roots Earth in Leuven

Open Roots Earth and choose Leuven. The city has its own map of places with all 40 of them on it. Tap the place you are standing in front of, or any other, and play its short introduction or its deeper story. You decide what to listen to and in which order.

You can listen in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian, and there is no account. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection.

In full

All 40 places in Leuven, in the app's order, with their coordinates.

All 40 places in Leuven, with coordinates

Every place below has a short introduction and a deeper story in the Roots Earth app, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The names, the coordinates (latitude, longitude) and the one line descriptions are the app's own catalogue values of 15 September 2026; a place without a line here has none that this page can print.

1. Leuven Town Hall

Coordinates
50.87889, 4.70111
In one line
A lace-like Brabantine Gothic masterpiece built between 1439 and 1469, crowned by six octagonal turrets. Its facade carries 236 statues added in the 19th century, and it survived both World Wars to dominate the Grote Markt.

2. St. Peter's Church

Coordinates
50.87944, 4.70111
In one line
Leuven's Brabantine Gothic parish church, begun around 1425 on far older foundations. Its planned giant tower was never finished, while inside hang masterworks by Dieric Bouts. The belfry is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

3. Grote Markt

Coordinates
50.87917, 4.70139
In one line
Leuven's central market square, in its present form since the 14th century. Framed by the Gothic town hall, Saint Peter's Church and historic guild houses, it remains the city's civic heart and the setting for markets, festivals and processions.

4. Oude Markt

Coordinates
50.87806, 4.69944
In one line
Leuven's oldest market square, dating from the 12th century and once the city's main marketplace. Its near-continuous line of cafés along a long cobbled rectangle has earned it the nickname "the longest bar in the world."

5. University Library

Coordinates
50.87806, 4.7075
In one line
The KU Leuven library, rebuilt in the 1920s after German troops burned its predecessor in 1914. Designed by American architect Whitney Warren and funded largely by American donors, its 80-metre tower holds a carillon and stands as a memorial to wartime destruction and reconstruction.

6. Ladeuzeplein

Coordinates
50.87833, 4.70556
In one line
Leuven's largest central square, laid out in 1806 and built up from 1812, more than a century before construction of the rebuilt university library began. Named after a former university rector, it hosts markets, fairs and a Christmas market, and features Jan Fabre's giant beetle sculpture Totem.

7. Old University of Leuven

Coordinates
50.8779, 4.7005
In one line
Founded in 1425, one of Europe's oldest Catholic universities. It grew not as a single campus but as a web of colleges and halls across Leuven, drew scholars like Erasmus and Vesalius, and was suppressed in 1797 during the French Revolutionary period.

8. University Hall (Lakenhal)

Coordinates
50.87806, 4.70028
In one line
A medieval cloth hall begun in 1317 that became the heart of Leuven's university. It housed the famous library burned by German troops in 1914 and now serves as the central administration of KU Leuven.

9. Great Beguinage

Coordinates
50.87167, 4.69694
In one line
A walled medieval village of brick houses, cobbled lanes, and canals of the Dijle, home to semi-religious laywomen from the 13th century. Restored by KU Leuven and named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998, it now houses students and academics.

10. Small Beguinage

Coordinates
50.885, 4.69889
In one line
Leuven's second, more modest beguinage, documented from 1272 near the Sint-Geertrui Abbey. A handful of plain Flemish brick houses along a short street and two alleys, it was secularised after the French Revolution and later restored as ordinary housing.

11. M Leuven

Coordinates
50.87889, 4.70444
In one line
Leuven's city museum, opened in 2009 in a building by architect Stéphane Beel that weaves contemporary volumes around a former mayoral residence and courtyard. Its collection spans late-Gothic masters like Dirk Bouts through modern Flemish art and changing exhibitions.

12. Botanical Garden (Kruidtuin)

Coordinates
50.8779, 4.6901
In one line
Belgium's oldest botanical garden, founded in 1738 by the University of Leuven to grow medicinal herbs for medical students.

13. St. Michael's Church

Coordinates
50.87611, 4.70056
In one line
A former Jesuit church on Naamsestraat, built between 1650 and 1671 to a design by Father Willem Hesius. Its sculptural Baroque façade, with colossal columns and scrolls, stands among the finest in the Low Countries and contrasts sharply with Leuven's Gothic churches.

14. Fonske (Fons Sapientiae)

Coordinates
50.87917, 4.70194
In one line
A small bronze fountain on Rector De Somerplein, officially the Fons Sapientiae or Fountain of Wisdom. Sculpted by Jef Claerhout in 1975 for the university's 550th anniversary, it shows a student letting knowledge trickle into his head and is a beloved emblem of student Leuven.

15. Tafelrond

Coordinates
50.87889, 4.70167
In one line
A richly carved building on the east side of the Grote Markt, named for the guild "Round Table" that once met here. The original Gothic hall was rebuilt three times, the present neo-Gothic version dating from the 1920s and 1930s.

16. Naamsestraat

Coordinates
50.87422, 4.69991
In one line
One of Leuven's oldest streets, running roughly 1. 2 kilometres from the Grote Markt to the southern ring.

17. Pope's College

Coordinates
50.87701, 4.70267
In one line
A residential college of the old university, founded through the will of Pope Adrian the Sixth, the only Dutch pope, after his death in 1523. Its present classical buildings date mainly from the 1770s and still house students of KU Leuven.

18. Collegium Trilingue

Coordinates
50.88111, 4.70028
In one line
A humanist college founded in 1517 near the Vismarkt to teach Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Shaped with advice from Erasmus, it became a model for Renaissance learning across Europe and trained scholars such as Mercator and Vesalius.

19. House of Arenberg

Coordinates
50.87917, 4.70194
In one line
One of the great noble dynasties of the old Low Countries, the House of Arenberg rose from a small Eifel territory to become dukes and the wealthiest family of the Habsburg Netherlands, leaving a lasting mark on Leuven and Brabant.

20. Church of Our Lady of the Dominicans

Coordinates
50.87889, 4.69611
In one line
Begun in 1234, this is the oldest Gothic church in Leuven, built for the Dominican friars on an island in the Dijle. Heavily damaged in the Second World War, it was restored and now serves as a concert hall and cultural venue.

21. St. Quentin's Church

Coordinates
50.87028, 4.69861
In one line
A late-Gothic parish church on the Naamsestraat, first recorded in 1222 and an independent parish from 1252. Its choir rose in the early 1400s and its octagonal spire was added around 1900, while inside the furnishings are richly Baroque.

22. St. James's Church

Coordinates
50.88056, 4.69111
In one line
A church on the Sint-Jacobsplein with Romanesque origins and a Gothic body, closed in 1963 for structural reasons. Long associated with pilgrims bound for Santiago, its surviving tower counts among the seven wonders of Leuven.

23. City Theatre

Coordinates
50.87964, 4.70482
In one line
Leuven's city theatre on the Bondgenotenlaan, opened in 1867 to designs by city architect Edward Lavergne. Rebuilt after destruction in 1914 and again after 1944, it now stages programming run by the cultural centre 30CC.

24. Vismarkt (Fish Market)

Coordinates
50.88153, 4.69986
In one line
Leuven's oldest market square, set on a former arm of the Dijle that once served as the town's inner harbour. A fish-trading hub from the 13th century, it is now a lively quarter of cafés near the Collegium Trilingue.

25. Abbey of Park

Coordinates
50.864, 4.718
In one line
A Premonstratensian abbey founded in 1129 by Duke Godfrey the Bearded at Heverlee, south of Leuven. One of Western Europe's best-preserved monastic ensembles, it pairs Baroque stucco ceilings with ponds, farm buildings and a museum.

26. Castle of Arenberg

Coordinates
50.86333, 4.68306
In one line
A Flemish Renaissance château in Heverlee, begun by the Croÿ family in the early sixteenth century, with its main river façade built in 1517–1520. Held by the dukes of Arenberg until the First World War, it now houses the University of Leuven's Faculty of Engineering Science.

27. Keizersberg Abbey

Coordinates
50.8885, 4.6966
In one line
A Benedictine abbey crowning a hill north of Leuven, built from 1897 and formally founded in 1899.

28. Leuven Railway Station

Coordinates
50.8814, 4.7157
In one line
One of Belgium's busiest railway stations, opened in 1837. Its eclectic 1876–1879 building by architect Henri Fouquet now sits beneath a striking modern canopy of sixteen white domes, fronting the Martelarenplein on the edge of the city.

29. Vaartkom

Coordinates
50.88889, 4.7
In one line
The basin where Leuven's canal to Mechelen ends, once ringed by breweries, mills and grain silos. Since 2008 this old industrial harbour has become Belgium's largest urban renewal district, mixing converted warehouses with new waterside housing.

30. OPEK Arts Centre

Coordinates
50.88766, 4.69993
In one line
A 1950s customs warehouse on the Vaartkom, repurposed as OPEK in 2010. Now it gathers theatre companies, dance makers, studios and a café under one roof, a creative anchor for Leuven's redeveloped canal quarter.

31. Stella Artois Brewery (De Hoorn)

Coordinates
50.88658, 4.70459
In one line
The De Hoorn building on the Vaartkom, where Stella Artois was born in 1926. Brewing on the site goes back to the Den Hoorn brewery of 1366, bought by Sebastian Artois in 1717. Now a protected monument housing creative studios.

32. Sluispark

Coordinates
50.88681, 4.70011
In one line
A green square between two arms of the Dijle near the canal quarter, opened in 2017 on the site of demolished Artois bottling sheds. It reopened the river, added lawns, fountains and paths, and now anchors a new residential neighbourhood.

33. St. Gertrude's Abbey

Coordinates
50.88361, 4.69917
In one line
An Augustinian priory founded in 1206 by Henry the First, Duke of Brabant, raised to an abbey in 1449. Suppressed in 1797 and bombed in 1944, its surviving buildings beside the Gothic church are now listed heritage and converted into homes.

34. Mechelsestraat

Coordinates
50.88414, 4.69828
In one line
One of Leuven's oldest streets, an 1,100-metre medieval route from the Grote Markt toward Mechelen. Once lined with breweries, it holds the city's oldest privately inhabited house and climbs to Keizersberg abbey, hosting a Saturday flea market.

35. Dijle Park

Coordinates
50.87383, 4.69686
In one line
A small public park encircled by two arms of the river Dijle near the Schapenstraat, on land that once held watermills and a 19th-century manor.

36. St. Donatus Park

Coordinates
50.87555, 4.70291
In one line
A green pocket of Leuven laid out in English landscape style between 1869 and 1875, wrapped around surviving towers and a wall fragment of the city's 12th-century ramparts. Locals call it simply the city park.

37. Heverlee

Coordinates
50.86, 4.68972
In one line
A leafy southern district of Leuven, an independent municipality until it merged with the city in 1977. Home to Arenberg Castle, Park Abbey, the Heverlee woods and a sprawling university science campus along the Dijle.

38. Heverlee Woods

Coordinates
50.83809, 4.6835
In one line
A 635-hectare forest south of Leuven, once a ducal hunting park granted to Norbertine monks in 1154 and long held by the dukes of Arenberg. Today a protected landscape laced with walking trails and woodland sculptures.

39. Arenberg Park (Heverlee)

Coordinates
50.8633, 4.6832
In one line
The landscaped park around Arenberg Castle in Heverlee, where the river Dijle winds past a Renaissance château begun by the Croÿ family around 1515. Now the open green heart of the university's engineering campus.

40. Wijgmaal

Coordinates
50.92643, 4.70012
In one line
A village on the Dijle north of Leuven, recorded since the 14th century and part of the city since 1977. Its identity was forged by the Remy works, once among the world's largest producers of rice starch.

Roots Earth in short

Roots Earth has audio stories about 5,665 places in 130 cities, 25 countries and 6 regions, written by local people.

  • No account
  • Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection
  • Audio stories in English and German in every city, and in Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian in 126 of the 130 cities

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