In the 1870s, Yerseke on Zuid-Beveland was chosen for large-scale oyster cultivation to serve the French market. Before long, mussels, which had always flourished in the Eastern Scheldt estuary, overtook oysters as Yerseke’s main source of income. Mussels and oysters are still a huge industry for Yerseke, and this is the only harbour in the …
The people of Lier are often called Schapekoppen (sheep heads), which is a 14th-century insult turned into a point of pride. The story goes that at the start of the 14th century John II, Duke of Brabant wanted to thank Lier for its help in his fight against the City of Mechelen. He gave Lier’s …
In the Early Modern Age if you were a visitor to Huy, a city on the rugged banks of the Meuse, you would be pointed to the city’s four wonders, “Les Quatre Merveilles”. These have their original Walloon names, and include the intact fountain on Grand-Place (Li Bassinia), the rose window at the Notre-Dame de …
The resort of Oostkapelle is on the peaceful northwest coast of Walcheren, once an island that became a peninsula with the construction of the Oosterscheldekering dam in 1986. Middelburg, the capital of Zeeland is only ten kilometres to the south, and in the 17th and 18th century its wealthy citizens founded country estates near the …
In a wide-open polder landscape, Damme is a historic fortified town that grew up in Medieval times as a trading outpost for nearby Bruges. Under Napoleon a big strip of the town was demolished to make way for the Damse Vaart, a canal that was to be one piece of an ambitious but unrealised network …
Up to 1963 this city in Hainaut was part of West Flanders, but switched to Wallonia because of its large francophone population. It’s no exaggeration to say that Mouscron is at a crossroads, as close as can be to the French border and Belgium’s own internal boundary. The city’s main square, a stage for the …
For hundreds of years up to the 1950s Verviers was an international byword for high-quality fabrics like woollen cloth. The riches generated by this industry can be seen in the palatial city hall, the Neoclassical mill complex housing the city’s textile museum, the Grand-Théâtre opera house and the startling collections at Verviers’ fine arts museum. …
Resting in a valley close to where the Ardennes massif meets the Hautes Fagnes plateau is the world’s original spa resort. Spa grew up around a natural source long praised for its supposed healing properties. Charles II of England and Peter the Great came to take the waters at Spa, but these springs had been …
In 1331 the Count of Luxembourg John of Bohemia granted city privileges to this little settlement on a meander in the Ourthe River. That’s quite a comical idea today, as Durbuy is no bigger than an average village. In fact this may actually be the smallest city in the world. One thing for sure is …
Close to Belgium’s very northeast, Bree is a city in the Kempen, an idyllic region of heaths, wetlands and farmland. For hundreds of years agriculture has been the backbone of Bree’s economy, and one of the largest markets in the region coils around the city centre every Friday. Bree’s walkable old core has kept hold …