Gileppe dam

The main feature of the dam is a 13.5 meters high and 130 tons heavy sandstone lion. This lion stands on top of the dam wall and in contrary to what you might have thought, the 13 meter high lion does not look to the side of the lake – towards its own land -, but it looks towards the German frontier, which is only 10 km away. It turns out that King Leopold II did this consciously and deliberately. Actually, this lion is a gigantic raised middle finger to Prussia. You just have to dare. “Il faut le faire”.

The original purpose of the dam was to provide usable water for the textile industry in the vicinity of Verviers. In the period 1968-1971 the dam was raised by more than 10 m. Since then, the capacity of the lake has reached 26.5 million m³ on an area of ​​130 ha.