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Brussels
See the Brussels City
Guide
Waterloo
Waterloo was the site of the famous Napoleonic battle where
he was defeated by the British Duke of Wellington in 1815.
Visit the Lion's Mound, five kilometers outside town for a
panoramic view of the battlefield and watch the recreation
that often takes place in June.
Battlefield
of Waterloo
Route du Lion 315
1410 - Waterloo
Telephone: 00 32 2389 1760
Last Headquarters of Napoleon
Chaussee de Bruxelles 66
1472 - Vieux Genappe
Waterloo
Wallonie
The Ardennes offers lots of relaxing hideaways with
hiking trails through deep forests to impressive citadels
and caves. The southeast corner is the most exceptional. Surely
the most spectacular attraction of the Ardennes is the Grottes
de Han. These are the caves of Han Sur Lesse, which
has itself become a popular tourist destination, due to the
popularity of the caves. The tour of the caves takes you through
a sequence of 'rooms' covered in stalactites and stalagmites,
each more impressive than the last. An excellent sound and
light show ends the experience before you are transported
to the exit by boat on the underground Lesse River.
Domaine
de Grottes de Han
Rue Joseph Lamotte
B-5580 Han Sur Lesse
Telephone: 00 32 8437 7212
There are castles around every corner in the Ardennes. Rather
than just visiting one of them, why not treat yourself and
stay in one? The Chateau d'Hassonville has huge, beautiful
rooms and vast grounds that are perfect for walking and relaxing
in. Originally a hunting lodge for Louis XIV, the Chateau
also offers exceptional dining and service - all round a very
special experience.
Chateau
D'Hassonville
Route D'Hassonville 105
6900 - Marche en Famenne
Tel - 00 32 84 31 1025
If getting active is more your idea of fun, then Durbuy
Adventure has everything you could possibly need to keep
you occupied. Abseiling, rock climbing, rappelling, kayaking,
quad biking, rope-bridge courses and mountain biking are just
some of the activities on offer. They can also arrange hot-air
balloon and helicopter rides.
Durbuy
Adventure
Domaine des Closeries
62, Allee du Val
B - 6940 Barvaux-sur-Ourthe
Tel - 0032 86 21 91 64
If after all that adventure you need a drink, head for the
Abbaye D'Aulne. Set in the beautiful ruins of the abbey
is the brewery of the Val de Sambre. You can see the
beer being brewed in the traditional brewery and sample the
beer itself in the bar area. The beer is very good indeed,
and you can also eat local specialties such as escaveche
(marinated fish) or local cheese with celery salt.
Brasserie
du Val de Sambre
Abbaye d'Aulne
Rue Vandervelde 273
6534 Gozee
Belgium
Telephone: 00 32 71 56 20 73
Namur
Namur is a great base for outdoors adventures in the
Ardennes wilderness. Visit the foreboding citadel,
built by the Spanish in the Middle Ages and occupied until
1978. There are also opportunities for hiking, biking, caving,
and kayaking.
Dinant
As a daytrip from Namur, go to Dinant, a tiny town
where you can ride by cable car up the imposing citadel. Then
visit the cascade filled caves of Grotte Merveilleuse
and go rock climbing with Dakota
Raid Adventure company.
Rochefort
Rochefort has millennium old limestone grottoes, as interesting
as those at nearby Han sur Lesse but less touristy.
They're open April to mid-November.
Mechelen (Malines)
This town is historically the ecclesiastical capital of Belgium;
check out the stately St Rumbold's Cathedral with its
gorgeous stained glass windows and a massive 97-meter gothic
tower. It was latterly associated with the grim events of
the Holocaust; for a reminder visit the Jewish Museum of
Deportation and Resistance, housed in an eighteenth century
military barracks used as a halfway camp for Jews en route
to Auschwitz.
Eat the local specialty, white asparagus.
Bruge (Brugge)
Bruge, built on the Zwin River, reached its heyday
in the thirteenth to fifteenth century when it was the richest
city in the world, built on banking services and the trade
of fine cloth manufacturers. The historic centre is a UNESCO
site as it is one of the best preserved examples of Northern
European Renaissance architecture. Go on a walking tour of
the city or take a boat along the canals. There just so much
to do:
- Climb the medieval bell tower of the Belfort, which
looms 88-meters offers great views of the gabled houses lining
the Markt (market).
- Visit the Groeninge Museum to see paintings by Bosch,
Van Eyck, and Memling.
- Check out an ancient hospital in the Memling Museum,
housed in the St-Janshospitaal, one of the oldest surviving
medieval hospitals in Europe.
- Watch flour being ground in the 230-year-old windmill Sint-Janshuismolen.
- Find out about Bruges' role as the first diamond polishing
centre at the Diamantmuseum.
- Visit the serene bejinhof (community of Beguines)
dating from the thirteenth century which housed 50 women of
a variety of ages.
- Chance upon a complex of godshuizen (almshouses);
there are 46 in Bruges.
- Go shopping for lace.
For tourist information, the Tourist Office is situated right
in the center of town.
Bruges Tourist
Office
Burg 11
B - 8000 Bruges
Belgium
Telephone: 00 32 50 44 8686
Bruges is known as the Venice of the North and so what better
place to stay in Bruges than on a barge? The Boat Hotel
De Barge has immaculate rooms (make sure you ask for one
facing the water as the alternative view is over the car park!)
and an outstanding seafood restaurant. The service is friendly
and it is ideally situated, just 10 minutes walk from the
very center.
Boat
Hotel de Barge
Bargeweg 15
8000 Bruges
Belgium
Telephone: 00 32 50 38 5150
Bruges has always been famous for its lace. Whether you are
a fan or not, it is worth visiting the Kantcentrum (lace center)
where the ladies of Bruges make their pieces. The speed and
dexterousness with which their fingers work is absolutely
fascinating. The ladies are there every day and anyone is
welcome to visit.
VZW
Kantcentrum
Peperstraat 3a
B - 8000 Bruges
Telephone: 00 32 50 33 00 72
Antwerp (Antwerpen, Anvers)
Underrated and cosmopolitan, Antwerp is fast developing
a formidable reputation in Europe as a cutting edge city (not
something many people associate with Belgium!). As home to
the Golden Age master painter Rubens, its most beautiful
monument is the Gothic Cathedral of Our Lady that houses
two of his masterpieces, the Raising of the Cross and
the Descent from the Cross. Visit his wonderful Flemish
Renaissance house linked by an elegant Italian portico to
the Italian Renaissance atelier. Check out the fanciful mansions
built in the city's Golden Age on the Cogels Osylei.
The Royal Museum of Fine Arts houses one of the world's
finest collections of old masters. Antwerp is the very centre
of the world's diamond industry. More than seventy percent
of the world's diamonds are cut, polished and traded here;
visit the interactive Diamond Museum. On the grounds
of the nearby estate of Middelheim is the open-air Museum
of Modern Sculpture, which exhibits works by virtually all
major sculptors from Rodin to the present day.
For tourist information, visit the excellent Tourism Antwerp,
either in person (their office is in Antwerp's main square)
or you can visit their website.
Toerisme
Antwerpen
Grote Markt 15
2000 - Antwerpen
Telephone: 00 32 32 03 9554
For information on the diamond industry, visit the excellent
Krochmal and Lieber Diamonds website.
Krochmal
and Lieber Diamonds
Pelikaanstraat 62
2018 Antwerpen
Telephone: 00 32 3233 2169
For the best beer bar in Antwerp visit the Kulminator.
With over 600 beers and a menu that looks more like a telephone
directory, it is packed with locals. Great atmosphere and
spontaneous guitar playing and singing make for an excellent
night out.
Bierhuis Kulminator
Vleminckveld 32
2000 - Antwerpen
Tel - 00 32 3232 4538
Antwerp is where one of the most famous Flemish artists,
Pieter Paul Rubens, made his home. This home is now
a museum and contains many of his paintings, including a rare
self portrait. The information center in the square outside
has books and leaflets. Try to get to the museum early as
it gets extremely busy in the afternoons, with traffic jams
of people trying to make their way around the various rooms.
Rubenshuis
Wapper 9-11
2000 - Antwerpen
Tel - 00 32 3201 1555
'French' fries are served with just about everything in Belgium
and are hugely popular just as a snack on their own. You will
see Frituurs, French fries shops, everywhere. They are always
served with a choice of sauce, ranging from the usual mayonnaise,
to the more unusual pepper, tartare or cocktail sauce. One
of the best the Globe Trekker crew tried was Frituur Eric,
near the Schelde River.
Frituur Eric
Kloosterstraat 69
2000 - Antwerpen
Tel - 00 32 4751 67 31 58
Belgium is world famous for its chocolate and one of the
great pleasures of Belgium is trying as many different types
as possible. Chocolatier Burie is situated in a picturesque
little square and is most well known for the incredible chocolate
sculptures that adorn their window display. The sculptures,
as well as the chocolates themselves, are made at the little
factory across the square. Try their specialty - chocolate
diamonds!
Chocolatier Burie
Korte Gasthuisstraat 3
2000 - Antwerpen
Tel - 00 32 3232 3688
Oostduinkerke
The other main ports in this region are Zeebrugge and
Ostend, with catamaran and ferries connecting to southern
and northern England.
Around a 30-minute drive from Ostend is the small seaside
town of Oostduinkerke. Not a particularly attractive
town, with lots of concrete tower blocks lining the beachfront,
it does have a charming tradition that has been practiced
here for centuries. The Horseback fishermen strap carts and
nets to the back of their horses and wade out into the North
Sea to collect grey shrimp. This takes place all year round,
although in summer it is more for tourists as the warm sea
means that yields of the shrimp are down. Look out for the
days where they cook the shrimp that have been caught on the
beach and hand them out to the crowds. For more information,
contact the local tourist office.
Toerisme
Koksijde
Leopold II Laan, 2
8670 Koksijde - Oostduinkerke
Telephone: 00 32 58 53 2121
Ghent (Gent)
Ghent is a city dedicated to industrial pride; it was once
the heart of the Belgian textile industry and its grand buildings
and monuments testify to its greatness. Visit the sprawling
medieval fortress of Gravensteen which holds a crypt,
dungeon, and torture chamber; the first Count of Flanders
decided to build a castle at the meeting of the Lieve and
Leie rivers in order to thwart the raiding Norsemen. Visit
the nearby network of sixteenth to eighteenth century houses
in the Partershol quarter. Climb the Belfort
for a serious dose of vertigo. St Bavo's Cathedral has
Eyck's Adoration of the Mystic Lamb and Ruben's St
Bavo's Entrance into the Monastery of Ghent. Drink
to a mixed history at the Vooruit Bar, once a meeting
place of the Socialist Party and later occupied by the Nazis.
Ypres
A visit to Ypres is where you can investigate the World at
War:
- Visit the excellent In Flanders Fields Museum, which
promotes peace as well as the remembrance of war and tells
the stories of ordinary people.
- Visit the 150 British cemeteries with their rows of white
crosses.
- Within the town there's the Menin Gate, inscribed
with the names of 55,000 British and Commonwealth troops who
died in the trenches and have no graves.
For excellent tours of the battlefields contact FBT Tours'
Dave Whapshott. A walking encyclopedia of information
on all things World War One, there is nothing that Dave doesn't
know about the war its effects of the Ypres region.
Contact: Dave Whapshott
Flanders
Battlefield Tours
Telephone: 00 32 57 218 218
To find out more about the extraordinarily tragic and moving
events of the war in Ypres, visit the excellent In Flanders
Fields museum. Very informative and interesting, it uses interactive
media and original footage to provide a fascinating experience.
In
Flanders Fields Museum
Lankenhallen, Grote Markt 34
B - 8900 Ieper
Telephone: 00 32 57 239 220
Hasselt
A delightful little town to the east of Brussels, Hasselt
is hugely underrated. It is very pretty with excellent shops
and the main square is perfect for relaxing in the cafes and
people-watching. Hasselt is most famous for its jenever, or
gin. Once the center of the jenever-producing industry,
it is home to the National
Jenever Museum.
For a real treat, have a look and see if the Stoopkes
are playing in a pub nearby. The Stoopkes are a band made
up of three jenever fanatics who only sing about….Jenever!
If you can get to see them, you are guaranteed a fun-filled
night out! Go to www.tuts.be
and clink on the Stoopkes link. |
