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Belgium Long Weekend, 2025
  • Laurie Bowden

Belgium Long Weekend, 2025

A short but fine adventure by Laurie Read more
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  • Trip start
    April 3, 2025
    Laurie BowdenBelgium Long Weekend, 2025Traveler

    An Antwerpen Morning

    April 4 in Belgium ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    In my mind, Belgium has always felt like quite an artificial country. From a historical perspective, it was created out of thin air to act as a buffer zone. From a cultural and linguistic perspective, the country is very divided between the Dutch-speaking more urban north and the French-speaking more rural south. And don't get me started on their horrifically complicated political setup. It's always seemed to me that it would be a lot simpler for Flanders to stop imitating the Netherlands and just join them, and for Wallonia to do the same with France.

    However, it's evident that the Belgian people don't take the same view, so I've decided to spend a long weekend in Belgium to get to know the country and hopefully learn a bit about what it means to be Belgian.

    My first stop is Antwerp, the capital of Flanders. In my view, Antwerp has its priorities straight - the train station is incredibly grand with an enormous domed ceiling and an impressive facade to welcome you as you disembark, while directly outside it they've positioned a Belgian chocolate experience and an enormous zoo.

    Despite this, I summoned all my willpower to not spend all day just at the zoo and eating chocolate, instead heading over to the Historic Centre of Antwerp and visiting two museums - Het Steen and the Museum Alan de Stroom. Both these museums gave a very interesting overview of the history of Antwerp, the former focusing on the key industries which have shaped the city and the latter focussing more deeply on the experience of Antwerp during the Second World War and the history of its port.

    My favourite was the history of the port and the explanation of how the fortunes of the port have directly correlated with those of the city. The port notably boomed during the days of the Hanseatic League, during the Spanish rule over the Low Countries after the discovery of the New World, during Napoleon's attempts to expand it with the idea of using it as a base to attack the British, and during the personal rule of Leopold II over the Congo causing Antwerp to become the centre of the Diamond trade.

    This afternoon I intend to be a bit more indulgent, spending some time dining in the sun and visiting Chocolate Nation!    Read more

  • Laurie BowdenBelgium Long Weekend, 2025Traveler

    Books & Chocolate

    April 4 in Belgium ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    After a very pleasant lunch I decided to geek out at Antwerp's UNESCO World Heritage Site - the Museum Plantin Moretus, the former home and publishing house of one of the world's most prolific book printers. The tour was interesting and surprisingly hands-on - there were many very old books available to flick through including an atlas I must have spent at least half an hour perusing. The museum did a good job of explaining the significance of the printing press and its impact specifically on Moretus but also on Antwerp as a city. It even goes the two oldest printing presses in the world.

    After all this intellectual nourishment I'd worked up an appetite and so the last stop on my whistle stop tour of Antwerp was Chocolate Nation.

    Having previously been to the Lindt Home of Chocolate in Switzerland, I was interested to see how Europe's other great chocolatiering nation would compare. In my opinion, Belgium takes the win; since the Chocolate Nation tour in Antwerp isn't focused on a specific company, instead focusing on Antwerp's role as the largest cocoa bean port in the world, the tour was able to focus much more on the core aspects of chocolate production, with more opportunities to taste the results along the way!    Read more

  • Laurie BowdenBelgium Long Weekend, 2025Traveler

    Aachen - the City of Charlemagne

    April 5 in Germany ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C

    This morning I headed over the border to visit Aachen, a small German city notable for being the heart of Charlemagne's Carolingian empire.

    It's a quaint, old city with classic European cobbled streets, attractive squares and lots of fountains, statues & churches. It's dominated by an impressive cathedral where Charlemagne's sarcophagus is on display to this day.

    Like most, I'd heard of Charlemagne but didn't know much about him so I made an effort before I visited to listen to a few podcasts about his life. He was a relatively self-made man for the ninth century, born hundreds of years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire but centuries before the emergence of Medieval Europe, he's undoubtedly the most notable European historical figure of this period.

    From his heartlands in this area of northern Rhineland, he conquered hundreds of miles of territory stretching across modern day France and Germany and even beyond the Alps down to Rome. No-one had controlled that large a territory in Western Europe for centuries earlier and no-one would again for hundreds of years.

    He spread Christianity across pagan peoples in Northern Europe and really created the playbook for how Medieval Kings and particularly Holy Roman Emperors would behave, the quintessential European ruler.    Read more

  • Laurie BowdenBelgium Long Weekend, 2025Traveler

    Maastricht

    April 5 in the Netherlands ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    What's this? A third country in one day? Yes, after a really pleasant bus ride through the Limburg countryside, I arrived in the very pretty university city of Maastricht in the Netherlands!

    To be totally honest, I've done nothing remotely intellectual or cultural here, just wandered around taking in the sights and sounds of the city while narrowly avoiding being hit by cyclists - always a sure sign you're in the Netherlands!

    I'd been expecting this city to feel a little less Dutch - in the 1830s, when Belgium broke away from the Netherlands, Limburg was originally part of the nascent Belgium, which made sense given its predominantly Catholic demographics. However during the peace negotiations leading up to the First Treaty of London, two-thirds of Luxembourg was handed to Belgium and, in exchange for King-Grand Duke William I giving up this territory, the Dutch king was granted half of Limburg which became a part of the German Confederation. This was a personal union and so this part of the world did not officially merge into the Netherlands until the 1860s. So in short, during the 19th century this city was Dutch, then Belgian, then German and then Dutch again. It was also this Treaty of London which signed up the UK to be a guarantor of Belgian neutrality, which in 1914 resulted in Britain being dragged into the First World War.

    Regardless of this history, Maastricht does feel very Dutch. Putting aside the overwhelming abundance of bicycles, I think the key contrast is the lack of that somewhat awkward bilingualism that I've seen so far in Antwerp and Brussels. In Aachen this morning I knew to say "guten morgen", "bitte" and "danke" and here in Maastricht I have no hesitation in saying "hallo", "alsjeblieft" and "dank u wel". All the signs are monolingual as well. However, in Belgium I'm a bit more hesitant and I've seen others on trains defaulting to English when speaking to strangers, and the signs all tend to show 4 languages - Dutch, French, German and English.

    But to conclude on Maastricht, this is a delightful little Dutch city, cyclists are everywhere, the people here feel a little less tall than in Amsterdam, and I think I'm a little jealous of the people who chose to study here for university.    Read more

  • Laurie BowdenBelgium Long Weekend, 2025Traveler
    1

    Looking around Liège

    April 5 in Belgium ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    In retrospect, maybe leaving the city with the 1,200-foot staircase until last in today's tri-city day trip could have been planned slightly better!

    Liège is the first Walloon city I've visited in Belgium. The economic and cultural centre of Wallonia today, it was the former Walloon industrial heartland, a powerhouse of steel production, and used to be an influential prince-bishopric of the Holy Roman Empire. It is considered the cultural capital of Wallonia given its abundance of theatres, art museums and museums. In particular, the train station is very similar in style to the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, having been designed by the same architect.

    In my view, however, it felt like a city that hasn't quite managed to overcome the challenges of deindustrialisation. Its most notable feature is la Montagne de Beuren, an enormous staircase leading up to a Citadel on top of the hill overlooking the River Meuse (or Maas in Dutch - hence Maastricht). Besides this, the city feels very ex-industrial, lacking some of the charm of the other cities I visited today. It also felt quite difficult to travel from one end of the city to the other, though I've since found out that the city will be introducing trams in just 10 days time!

    Unfortunately I didn't have time to visit the Museum of Walloon life today, but I'll be interested to see how Liège compares to other Walloon cities I'll visit later in this trip.    Read more

  • Laurie BowdenBelgium Long Weekend, 2025Traveler

    In Bruges, briefly

    April 6 in Belgium ⋅ ☀️ 6 °C

    This morning I took a trip to Bruges, the renowned quaint little medieval Flemish city. I was excited to visit as it's a notoriously pretty place with cobbled streets, attractive canals and delightful bridges in a manner reminiscent of Venice.

    However, today is the much-anticipated day of the Tour of Flanders - a huge cycling event that attracts people from all over Belgium to come and support their favourite cyclists. It also has the side effect of closing all the tourist attractions and making navigating the city an absolute nightmare due to road closures along the cycle route.

    Consequently, I took in the sights, marvelled at how quaint it was, and cut my losses by heading to Ghent earlier than planned. It's probably for the best - according to a film I watched on the plane there's a couple of professional Irish hitmen laying low around here...    Read more

  • Laurie BowdenBelgium Long Weekend, 2025Traveler

    Gallivanting in Ghent

    April 6 in Belgium ⋅ ☀️ 11 °C

    Following an early exit from Bruges, I decided to stop off in Ghent on the way back to Brussels.

    Ghent is often considered Belgium's second "fairytale" city due to its concentration of churches and castles in the city centre. Similar to Bruges, it offers boat tours and the medieval streets are very picturesque. The belfry even played bell music all morning!

    It was a delightful city to visit, and I enjoyed having lunch in the shadow of Ghent's castle of the counts, Gravensteen.

    Rather than explore Ghent further, however, I've decided to spend a bit of time taking a look around the city I've been staying in all this time but in which I have barely ventured beyond the hotel or train station - Brussels!    Read more

  • Laurie BowdenBelgium Long Weekend, 2025Traveler

    Finally exploring Brussels

    April 6 in Belgium ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    I've been staying in a hotel in Brussels throughout this trip but in all honesty I hadn't explored any of the city besides the hotel and three train stations! Since today's activities were cut shorter than expected, I decided to spend a bit more time than I'd initially planned looking around the city I'd chosen to stay in.

    Most of my time was spent in the House of European History. It immediately felt different to the other museums I'd visited on this trip since it had airport-style security, presumably because of its location immediately nextdoor to the European Parliament.

    This museum was deceptively large, cramming a huge amount of history into a relatively small building - fitting for a museum that strives to summarise the history of an entire continent! I think there's enough in there to fill up half a day.

    Following that museum and a stroll through the grounds of the European Parliament, I reflected on that question I came here to try to answer - what does it mean to be Belgian? And from my experience of this city so far, I feel like Brussels' answer, really, is that it doesn't matter. This city feels like it is filled with citizens of the world living in the capital of the European continent rather than Belgians living in the capital of Belgium. It actually contrasts quite sharply with the other Belgian cities I've visited, all of which feel like they have a bit more pride in their respective heritages.

    I finished the day on a brief tour of the city centre with the aim of finding all three of Brussels' "Pis" statues - a boy, a girl and a dog all charmingly urinating - followed by a quest to find a nice looking restaurant that served Moules Frites, or "Brussels Mussels". Here's hoping my experience with this Belgian classic is less severe than Harry's!    Read more

  • Laurie BowdenBelgium Long Weekend, 2025Traveler

    Atomium & Mini-Europe

    April 7 in Belgium ⋅ ☀️ 6 °C

    On my last day in Belgium, I travelled to the site of the 1958 World Expo to visit one of Brussels' most iconic sites - the Atomium. This 96 storey structure is Brussels' answer to the Eiffel Tower and was the centrepiece of the World Fair. Its shape is based on the structure of an iron crystal and was emblematic of the atomic age the world had entered into in the 1950s.

    It's an impressive structure to behold, particularly in the sunshine, though it's unfortunate that almost all other remnants of the Expo have disappeared from the surrounding area.

    It's a little disappointing that World Fairs are no longer around - every country would set up a zone to exhibit all their most interesting and exciting developments and so by attending this fair one could travel around the world in the space of a day!

    That concept is possible at a European level, however, by visiting the nextdoor Mini Europe, a park containing 1:25 replicas of some of the most iconic sites across the 27 EU member states & the UK. This park was fantastic to stroll around and look at all the miniature buildings, complete with tiny people, boats and cars. I really enjoyed finding all the sites I'd seen in person on this trip and on previous ones, as well as getting inspiration for the next ones!    Read more

  • Laurie BowdenBelgium Long Weekend, 2025Traveler

    The Lion's Mound - Waterloo

    April 7 in Belgium ⋅ ☀️ 14 °C

    To finish off my trip, I got off the bus to the airport in a field just outside a town to the south of Brussels called Waterloo. In 1815, this was the site of the final battle of the Napoleonic Wars, the Battle of Waterloo, in which the allied army led by the Duke of Wellington inflicted a crushing defeat on Napoleon Bonaparte, condemning his fate to be exiled to Saint Helena for the remainder of his life.

    This was the third-bloodiest battle of the Napoleonic Wars and so, to memorialise the fallen soldiers, an enormous mound was created topped with a steel statue of a lion looking out over the battlefield, protecting a globe with its paw.

    Today, a delightful little museum can be found next to the mound which gives a really good overview of the background to this battle, from the French Revolution to the rise of Napoleon and his wars of conquest across the continent. It also houses an impressive 360º panorama in which the key aspects of the battle are painted in great detail, as well as a lovely restaurant where I ate some Belgian meatballs - Boulettes Sambre et Meuse.

    The view from the top of the mound was fantastic - you can really see why this part of the world is called the Low Countries; there are no hills for miles so you can see Brussels and other, further cities on the horizon! It was a nice way to end the trip - sat in the shadow of Belgium's national animal looking out over this country which, while it admittedly still feels like an artificial smorgasbord of Dutchiness, Frenchiness and quite a lot of Citizen-of-the-Worldiness, I'd like to think I understand a bit better now than I did a few days ago.    Read more

    Trip end
    April 7, 2025
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