The former Hanseatic trading town of Hattem is on the IJssel river and was granted city rights as long ago as 1299. The Grote of Andreaskerk here has elements that are even older, like a 13th-century Romanesque tower and a baptismal font. It won’t take long to investigate Hattem’s protected cityscape, a dinky warren of …
A mid-sized city in the Utrecht Province, Veenendaal had humble beginnings in the 16th century as a peat-cutting colony founded by the Antwerp businessman Gilbert van Schoonbeke. The peat industry was practically killed off by a flood in 1855, after which Veenendaal turned to the cigar-making and woollen industries for its livelihood. Veenendaal ballooned in …
This fortified town on the Bergsche Maas was founded around the 13th century but went through a big transformation in the 1500s. At a key strategic position on the river dividing Brabant and Gelderland, Heusden was turned into a fortress on the Zuiderwaterlinie, a string of defences to protect the Netherlands from Spanish and then …
For more than a millennium this picturesque town in the heart of Haute Ardenne was the seat of the Princely Abbey of Stavelot-Malmedy. The abbots of Stavelot had power that reached well beyond modern Belgian borders, as far as the Loire, and had a lasting influence on the arts in the Medieval period. The abbey …
As you might notice from the equine monument on the main market square, horses have had an important place in the heritage of this city in the Leie Valley. From the 18th century Waregem was a stop on the coaching road between Kortrijk and Ghent. Later, in the middle of the 19th century, the city …
At the mouth of the IJzer (Yser), Nieuwpoort mixes a historic port with a booming beach resort. Fishing is still a way of life here, as you’ll discover at the Vismijn auction hall, and the nearby National Fisheries Museum. On the resort side, Nieuwpoort-Bad is growing at high speed, and has a grid of multi-storey …
Couched in the sprawling wetlands of the Weerribben-Wieden National Park, Giethoorn is a village of thatched farmhouses, wooden footbridges and gardens overflowing with flowers, all threaded with canals. Cars aren’t much use in Giethoorn, and the “street” signs are on the canals instead. As with the surrounding region, that latticework of waterways is the product …
The town of Houffalize in Belgian Luxembourg is at the very heart of the Ardennes. Think primeval forests, sharp valleys with gossamer mists and idyllic pastures. Many thousands of hectares of countryside around Houffalize are preserved as a natural park, waiting for adventures on foot, by water or on a mountain bike. You can journey …
In the middle of the 19th century, quartz sand, a valuable mineral for glassmaking, was discovered outside Lommel. This sparked an industry that persists today, permanently altering the countryside around the town. Exhausted former quarries are now nature reserves, and combine to form the gigantic Bosland, the largest wooded area in Flanders. Lommel’s contribution to …
The oldest city in Belgium was founded as Atuatuca Tungrorum in the 1st century CE. Decades before, the Celtic tribal prince Ambiorix had railed against the Roman Empire on this land, and is remembered with an imposing statue on Grote Markt. You can take a trip back to Roman times all over Tongeren, at the …