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I think Fanny Rodwell once explained that they had been looking for at good site in Brussels for a long time but never successeeded to find one. Then they decided on Louvain-la-neuve because Hergé liked that area a lot.

A review of my recent pilgrimage to Musee Herge.
A truly religious experience!
http://hagenillustration.blogspot.com/

Very nice, hagen8! Sounds like you had a great holiday, and the museum was the icing on the cake!

Just for the record (and if you remember!), what sort of time did you have to get a train from Gare du Midi to get to the museum for opening time? Sounds like an early start is a good idea, with so much to see…

Oh, and, “Go, Flying Carrots!”… ;-)

Hah! The Flying Carrots are awesome, aren't they?

We left early, I want to say around 8:30am and got in to Louvain-la-Neuve around 9:30am and walked around the town for an hour before the 10:30am opening. I'd been to Brussels before and experienced riding the trains and trams and wasn't intimidated by the rush hour commuters when it came to trying to find my way to Louvain-la-Neuve. Not a lot of signage or information at Brussels-Midi, but it's do-able. Once at Louvain-la-Neuve, there's a nice comic book shop near the station to waste time in (although little air conditioning anywhere for Americans)! Upon entering Musee Herge, you get a nice brochure and collectible postcard (like the ones they sell in the shops). I was impressed that much of the stuff is available in English, which I wasn't expecting (after years of reading Herge biographies en francais). I swear we spent 6 hours there and could have spent more had we not blown through the Joost Swarte exhibit. The gift shop is almost worth the price of admission...imagine a Tintin Shop on steroids. It really was one of the nicest museums I've ever visited and was so pleased by that!

Totally agree.

I went there last year right after opening. It was amazing to see such an extensive collection of original work.

I went a few weeks ago. Practical things first:

Train timetables here: http://www.b-rail.be/main/E//

1. Trains from Bruxelles twice an hour, half of them direct. If you have to change, it's in place called Ottignies. Trains leave from Bruxelles-midi/Brussel-Zuid (southern station). However, I was a bit surprised to notice that instead of heading south and towards the museum, the train first takes a tour (that's an underground tour, so no sightseeing value there) around Bruxelles, stopping at least in Bruxelles centraal, Nord, Schuman and Luxembourg before actually heading south (those are from memory, couldn't find a list from the railway company site). Same applies to the return trip (and the station nearest to the museum is called Louvain-La-Neuve-Univ.)

Choose the one that suits you, unless you really prefer 15 stops in the metro, instead of sleeping half an hour more and walking two blocks into the nearest station...

Return ticket from Bruxelles area costs 9.60€, cheaper rates at weekends. Machines may not accept foreign credit/debit cards (didn't accept mine, had accepted the one from my friend a month earlier), but same price applies in the ticket office.

2. As said before, the walk from the train station is 5 or 10 minutes and signs start from the station.

3. Audio guide is very very good and free.

4. Museum shop offers the usual stuff, plus the museum catalogue. 40€ for a book the size of a phonebook. Brilliant work (or at least first 70 pages is brilliant, I forgot mine in the train between Bruxelles and Paris. Certainly worth the money if you keep it). Cheaper version is smaller than A5, maybe 50 pages and costs 10€, I recommend the expensive one.

5. There's absolutely nothing in the museum for kids (well, a park next to the museum). Fortunately I knew beforehand, and now you know - arrange your visit accordingly.

(Above took me few hours to find out, some web-surfing and some needless sitting on a metro/train. Maybe a good, short guide would be in order? Possibly too much to expect from the foundation, so maybe somewhere on this site?)

And then the substance part:

What I can I say? As you've possibly read between the lines, I'm not too fond of the foundation. I even admit going as far as thinking of not going. However, the museum is just brilliant work by them. Brilliant for a fan and brilliant for a casual observer. I must have visited hundreds (if not thousands) of museums in my life, and this one easily goes into top five. Easy for a quick glance where you think that's enough, easy to find more info. Always something around the corner that draws your attention, but you're not drowned into too much stuff to see. And enough space (=not too crowded, at least on a weekday) to take your time.

There are things that aren't touched (namely, nazi-accusations and personal life), but then again, why they should? The focus is on how Hergé worked, and that's shown brilliantly. From the moonraker model that was used at the studio, to the original strips that show the method, different phases of planning and corrections (that's something I'd recommend paying attention to, goes a long way in explaining why Tintin is what it is, a classic and a benchmark in comics. Second-last version usually looks very very very good, but Hergé was aiming for perfection, and final version is exactly that.).

In short, a must-go for a fan. I'm tempted to write more, but that would spoil the experience a bit, wouldn't it?

One last thing, can anyone confirm or falsify the following? I think I read from somewhere that plates on sight are changed every four months? At the time I understood it meant the permanent exhibition, but it could easily mean only the temporary exhibition (currently Tintin and trains, until August). I hope it's the former, there's certainly enough plates to do that. Not planning to visit that often, but maybe again in few years time...

Yes, you are correct about the archivists changing much of the permanent materials on a rotating basis for preservation purposes, and, I would assume, to keep the exhibits fresh. You probably won't see much of the same original pieces of artwork on a second visit.

Thanks for clarification, Hagen8!

And now for something completely different: (a short lecture on the history of Louvain-la-Neuve, that is).

Upon visiting Louvain-la-Neuve, I noticed that the town doesn't seem to have any streets, just market squares. A waitress kindly told me that all cars, roads and parking lots are underground. That's nice, but must have been expensive to build, I thought. After studying the history of the town a bit, I found out that it's probably relatively easy solution when you build a town from scratch...

As Rexmilou mentioned in the page 4 of this thread (post #38), it's possible to mix up Leuven (Flemish-speaking, north of Brussels) and Louvain-la-Neuve (French-speaking, south of Brussels). Names are indeed similar, and their history is mutual. Leuven (also called "Louvain" in French) used to have the oldest university in Belgium, founded in the early 15th century. To make a long story* short, the university was split in half in 1968 due to disagreement between Walloons and Flemish people. Flemish university stayed in Leuven, French moved into area of Ottignies, to a place which is now known as Louvain-la-Neuve. Quarrel also resulted in the resignation of the Belgian government.

Practically the new, French-speaking university (Université catholique de Louvain by it's proper name) and town were built on wasteland: at the time area had only few hundred inhabitants. If the town feels "nice but not much more", maybe even a bit "plastic" or "soulless", that might be because it's history is very short...

All this might shed some light on the question why the museum was built in Louvain-la-Neuve: the town is still very much in progress of creating an identity, and the museum fits the bill perfectly. Good job for them - though all marketing avenues are not in use: today, early hours in 13th of May in 2011, town's Wikipedia page doesn't even mention Hergé or the museum.




*an interesting story though: it includes being shut down during the French occupation in the late 18th century, re-opening in early 19th century, looting & destruction by German troops in the early days of the Great war, rebuilding in the twenties, only for the destruction to be repeated in the second world war... And some science as well, for example one Nobel-prize winner (Christian de Duve, medicine in 1974). Wikipedia will tell you more.

Has anyone been to the museum?

If so, what means did you use to get there by?

Thank you

Hope that you are well

Take care

wwwdot

Moderator Note: And welcome to you! Your post has been moved, and you will find much of what you are looking for in this very thread - see mondrian’s post above for some travel details, for example.

The Happy Tintinologist Team

You can fly to Brussels or take the train.

http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/ says there is a train every hour ending near the museum.

(This tip is from http://www.mhoefler.de/Brussels-Tintin/Tintin-Brussels.html - the site is from 2009 but ok)