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 …
On the Kempen Basin, the city of Beringen went through a mining boom that burned bright for a time after the Second World War before quickly fading. In Koersel, Beringen has been left with the largest industrial heritage site in Belgium, spread across 100,000 square metres. Of all the former mines in Belgian Limburg, this …
This city on the Meuse River is in an incredibly picturesque spot, squeezed between the water and the high valley walls. To the east is an insurmountable wall of limestone that has long made Dinant an attractive place for armies to gain a foothold on the Meuse. That cliff is still topped by a citadel, …
Set where the River Dender flows into the Scheldt, Dendermonde is a Medieval city loaded with important heritage. Making the headlines are two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, one a Gothic belfry and the other a beguinage dating back to the 13th century. Another of Dendermonde’s great claims to fame is its folkloristic horse, Ros Beiaard, …
This Walloon municipality in Belgian Luxembourg is on a ridge in the Ardennes at 500 metres above sea level. Bastogne is at a strategic putting it in the path of the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944-45. The Siege of Bastogne of December 1944 was a bloody engagement in a brutal couple …