Via Belgica

The surveyed line starts at Bagacum, capital of the Nervii, whose second-century forum is the largest yet found in Gaul. Several roads radiated from the town. This one heads east-north-east past stations the Peutinger Table names as Vogdoriacum, probably near Givry, then Geminiacum at Liberchies, then crosses the Hesbaye past Perwez to Tongeren. Distances here were reckoned in the Gaulish league of about 2.2 kilometres, not the Roman mile.

Atuatuca Tungrorum grew up under Augustus as the chief town of the Tungri, settled in the territory after Caesar destroyed the Eburones. From Tongeren the survey runs east past Herderen to Traiectum, the crossing of the Maas at Maastricht. The Peutinger Table omits it and gives the stage straight to Heerlen, but Tacitus records a fight for the bridge here during the Batavian revolt.

Beyond the Maas the road climbs to Coriovallum, Heerlen, a roadside town at the junction with the road north to Xanten. It crosses the Wurm into Germany, reaches Iuliacum at Jülich on the Rur, then crosses the Ville ridge and comes down into Cologne from the west.

In Wallonia long stretches survive as minor roads and farm tracks still signed Chaussée Brunehaut or Chaussée Romaine, holding the Roman alignment for kilometres at a time across open arable land. Between Tongeren and Maastricht the line is more fragmentary, kept by lanes and field boundaries and visible on nineteenth-century maps.

In Germany the eastern section is the best preserved: much of the stretch between Jülich and Cologne is still a road. The exception is the Hambach open-cast lignite mine, which has erased the line between Jülich and Elsdorf. At the Cologne end, from Weiden into the city, Aachener Straße follows the Roman course. Brünestraße in Baesweiler, west of Jülich, keeps the old name.

Tongeren makes the best base. The Gallo-Romeins Museum holds the finds of the town the Romans founded. Long runs of the second-century city wall still stand to the north and west. At Grand-Rosière-Hottomont, in the commune of Ramillies, the tumulus of Hottomont rises about ten metres beside the road: a Roman burial mound, probably of the second century, excavated in 1921.

At Bavay the Forum antique museum stands beside the excavated forum and its cryptoportico. In Heerlen the bath house of Coriovallum, among the best-preserved Roman buildings in the Netherlands, is shown under cover in the town's Roman museum, which is due to be rebuilt around it. Jülich's Museum Zitadelle has a room given over to the road; the nearby Sophienhöhe carries replica milestones.