Category: Belgium

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Belgium Europe Media Around The World

Media Around The World: Belgium

Background on Belgium: Its location surrounded by larger powers has led to Belgium being called “the Battlefield of Europe.” At various points, it was part of the Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, Hapsburg Spain, the Austrian Hapsburgs, and Revolutionary France. It has been independent since 1830 and was the first country in continental Europe to become industrialized. After it industrialized, it became a brutal colonizer of what is now Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Once those colonies became independent, it seems that Belgium turned that desire for conflict inward and its recent history is marked primarily by tension between its northern Dutch-speaking region, called Flanders, and its southern French-speaking region, called Wallonia. Most notably, after their 2010 federal election, they had a record 589 days without a government formation.

My visit: I’ve been twice. Once with Alan, where we based ourselves in Antwerp and focused more on the northern Flemish region, and a second time with Sam on a day trip to Namur from Luxembourg. It was important to me to see both the Flemish and Walloon regions of the country. I find their tension between these regions to be fascinating. The north is more economically developed than the south, which is clear at almost every point. If it gives you any indication, my first train trip in the Walloon region was an hour delayed. I’m not the biggest fan of Brussels, but I really liked Antwerp, Ghent, and Namur, and would definitely be open to returning to Belgium to explore more of their towns.

Fiction: I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

This was originally published in 1995, but it’s been having a moment again after being republished in 2022 and it went viral on TikTok. People give BookTok a lot of shit for promoting books that aren’t good, but this one really is deserving of a second wind. It’s a bleak dystopian novel with feminist themes in the same vein as The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake. I didn’t realize it was from the 90s when I read it; it still feels fresh and as relevant now as it was then. I would definitely recommend it.

Nonfiction: King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild

I thought about saving this book for the Democratic Republic of Congo, but ultimately I couldn’t find anything else that interested me for Belgium and I found a different nonfiction book about the exploitation of the DRC for resources to read when I get there. And really, at least some of my reads about Europe should grapple with colonialism. Plus, as the author frequently reminds us, most of the sources he has are the voices of Europeans and not Africans due to the difficulty of getting local Congolese records given what was happening to them at that time.

This was such an excellent nonfiction book. It’s a heavy read, obviously, but meticulously researched and documented. I knew some of the details of what happened in the Belgian Congo, but King Leopold’s reign there was absolutely horrific. When all the other European colonial powers are looking on in shock, you know you’ve really gone beyond the pale. If you are at all interested in this period of history or European colonialism in Africa more broadly, I can’t recommend this book enough.

Movie: Man Bites Dog (1992)

I’ve only seen 2 movies rated NC-17, and this is one of them. The other was the director’s cut of Infinity Pool that I saw at Sundance 2023. Man Bites Dog is described as a black comedy crime mockumentary. The premise is essentially that the crew of filmmakers are making a documentary about a serial killer, and as the film progresses, they end up as accomplices to his various murders. It is violent and it vacillates brilliantly between funny and disturbing. I’ve never seen anything else even remotely like it. It’s definitely not for everyone but I am glad I stumbled upon it.

If you are instead interested in a movie that shows Belgium off well, even if it is not actually a Belgian movie… may I recommend In Bruges (2008), where two hitmen have to lay low after they accidentally kill an alter boy. It shows off the city of Bruges beautifully, and I think it is part of why that has become so popular as a tourist destination.

Reflection: All my picks for Belgium are extremely dark! Which is a bit surprising for the country whose biggest contribution to popular culture is probably Tintin, and who is well-known for chocolate, waffles, and frites. They were also a brutal colonizer, which explains the nonfiction, but I have no explanation for the others. To any Belgians reading: are you guys okay?

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Belgium Europe France Germany Luxembourg

Day Trips From Luxembourg, Ranked

In three days, Sam and I went to the adjacent regions of three different countries as day trips from Luxembourg. It’s the kind of thing that makes me marvel at both the distances and the transportation networks across Europe – coming from the Western US, you can’t even have a similar experience in US states, let alone different countries. It was a great start to the trip and I would recommend any of these destinations, but part of why I keep up this website is to reflect on my own experiences, so here goes.

Third Place: Metz, France

Full disclosure, we weren’t even planning on going to Metz because I’d made this exact same calculation when I was planning this trip based on travel blogs. But the universe had other plans, and instead of the nice, 2.5 hour nonstop train ride from Paris to Luxembourg, we had a stop in Metz and then another stop in Thionville and then a bus ride, and we wanted to have dinner with Sam’s friend in Paris. So we did a stopover in Metz. I was glad to get the chance to explore it a bit before we headed up to Luxembourg City. Perhaps ranking it last is unfair of me, because we only gave it about a half day, which was the least amount of time of any of these places, but I’m also not entirely sure what we would have done with the other half day.

Pros: It’s very convenient, only an hour by transit even if there’s no rail and you have to do a bus bridge. Cheaper than Luxembourg. French food, and in particular, French bread. Charming, small Old Town with a few cool old churches and castles.

Second Place: Namur, Belgium

Namur was my top choice for a day trip, because I really wanted to visit the French part of Belgium – when Alan and I went to Antwerp, we stayed pretty north, and I was interested in going to a new region. I compared Namur, Liège, and Dinant, and Namur had by far the best train connections to Luxembourg. Still, I am going to ding this one in the rankings because of how far it was. Two hours by train was the scheduled time, and it ended up taking us closer to three to get there because our train broke down and we had to get off at the platform and wait for the next one.

My phone informs me that our unintended transfer point was Libramont

Still, despite that strange start to the morning, I really enjoyed Namur. We were there during some sort of food truck festival, which made for a fun lunch.

The best thing we did was take the cable car up to the Citadel. The views were amazing, we had a lovely walk down the hill, and we even found the golden turtle that functions as a de facto symbol of the city, which was something I had wanted to see! We also headed to the Félicien Rops museum, who was billed as Belgium’s most controversial painter. After seeing the room in the museum entitled “Eroticism and Satanism,” I can see why.

Pros: I think the Wallonia region is the most culturally interesting of the three day trips, especially if you’ve traveled to the Flanders region of Belgium in the past. The linguistic division of Belgium is something that we talked about in French class, and the way that my travel has worked out, it was easier to come to Namur from Luxembourg than it was to visit Wallonia when I was in Antwerp and Ghent. There were some solid museum options and we definitely could have spent more time up in the area with the citadel, as they had built that area up more for tourists.

First Place: Trier, Germany

Trier wins because of its Roman ruins and because of its proximity to Luxembourg City. Only an hour away, and it is seriously dense with options of what to do. We started at their symbol of the city, the Porta Nigra, which was an old Roman gate. Fun fact, part of the reason it was preserved so well is because a Greek monk started living in it to get away from society. We also made it to the Roman baths, which were over a larger site with a subterranean portion, and there was an amphitheater nearby that we could have gone to if we hadn’t wanted to eat dinner before our train back.

We also headed to the Karl Marx house, which was a well done museum that read like a cautionary tale – what if you really like philosophy and you think that workers should have a few rights, and then a bunch of politicians decide to take your life’s work and use it to justify a lot of terrible things, like genocide or imprisoning people in Siberia? Pretty rough, if you ask me.

We also had a chance to explore some of the city center, which was beautiful and had a few plaques to commemorate history that Sam had to translate for me, including a very old pharmacy. Sam also found us a potato restaurant for dinner, which for me is the peak German food experience!

Pros: Between the short distance and the German rail system, this was definitely the easiest, logistically. I also think it’s the best option for history lovers, between the Roman ruins and all the other historical sites spread out across the city. Trier has the oldest bridge in Germany, dating back to the 2nd century, and somehow it’s still both standing and in use.

Regardless, all three were excellent and I don’t think it’s possible to go wrong here. We went every direction from Luxembourg City and found something cool – north to Vianden, east to Trier, south to Metz, and west to Namur (well, northwest, but we’ll still count it). It sits really well at the crossroads of a lot of interesting places, and it was the perfect way to start out this trip. Once we were done in Luxembourg, we headed back to Paris to start the main event: the Olympics!

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Belgium Europe

Beautiful Belgium

The best flight option I could find from Salt Lake to Europe went through Amsterdam. I figured I’d hop back up from the Balkans to give myself a few days nearby, so I ended up spending the last three days of my trip exploring somewhere new! I didn’t have anything specific I wanted to see, but I wanted to eat waffles and chocolate and soak up the Belgian atmosphere. My friend Alan was able to join as well and it was so fun to see a bit of Belgium with no real agenda.

I based myself in Antwerp, since it was the northernmost city that was a slightly shorter trip from Amsterdam. From the first glimpse of the train station, it was gorgeous. I think it was my favorite of the three places I spent time in while I was in Belgium!

In classic fashion, I didn’t consider local holidays when I was planning this, so our first full day in Antwerp was some sort of national holiday. Sort of like when I forgot that Easter existed when Megan and I were in Italy – it just doesn’t occur to me, a person who barely celebrates holidays. Regardless, what that meant was that most of the places in Antwerp were closed. We figured it would be the same if we went to any of the other nearby towns, so we just went bar hopping in Antwerp. Let’s just say…. I’ve heavily sampled Belgian beer.

Somehow, we made it to Ghent the next morning, if a bit hungover (okay, more than a bit). Ghent was abuzz with a festival, which was really fun. There was live music and tents and all the streets were shut down, so we just wandered around and soaked it all in. Plus, both Alan and I got Belgian waffles covered in chocolate, which was really one of my main bucket list items in Belgium!

The last day, we headed to Brussels! We met up with one of Alan’s friends from study abroad, who fed us a delicious lunch and then showed us around. It was a whirlwind tour, so I’ll definitely have to come back some day, but I did see the statue and the Grand Place and a very cool park before I had to go find my bus back up to Amsterdam so I could fly home. It was such an amazing trip, and I felt so lucky to get another summer in Europe!