Basilica of Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel

Scherpenheuvel — Sharp Hill — is a small town in Flemish Brabant that has been a pilgrimage destination since the fourteenth century, when a wooden statue of the Virgin was placed in an oak tree on the hilltop and prayers offered there began to be answered. The current basilica was built between 1609 and 1627 under the patronage of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella, who poured money into the project as part of the Counter-Reformation effort to strengthen Catholic devotion in the Low Countries. The architect was Wenceslas Cobergher, and the church is a centrally planned heptagonal building — seven-sided — topped by a copper dome. It was one of the first Baroque churches in the region. Inside, the miraculous statue of Our Lady sits in a niche above the main altar, dressed in robes and crowned. The interior is compact and focused, all sight lines leading to the statue. Seven radiating chapels correspond to the seven sides. The hilltop setting means you approach the church by climbing, which gives the arrival a pilgrim's sense of effort and reward. The surrounding town was laid out in a star pattern with the basilica at the center, a piece of Counter-Reformation urban planning that is still visible from the air.