Introduction

If Belgium's spotlight on the European stage is a little dim, it's only because its people are rarely boastful. This slow-burning country has more history, art, food and architecture packed into its tiny self than many of its bigger, louder neighbours.

A rich and bubbling vat of beer, chocolate, oil paint and bureaucrats, Belgium gives off the heady pong of the bourgeoisie. But stir the pot a little and you'll find an 'artificial state' roughly made up of two parts Germanic Flemings to one part Celtic-Latin Walloons.

Divided by pride first and language second, the country's binding agents are a pervasive sense of family, and an indomitable entrepreneurial spirit. Visitors, lulled by the locals' friendliness, will probably not even notice the tensions that spark across the Linguistic Divide.

When to Go

You're unlikely to encounter extremes in weather during an average Belgian year. April to September is the warmest time, but be prepared for grey skies and soggy streets no matter what time of year you go. Visitors may be forgiven for assuming umbrellas and raincoats are part of the Belgian national dress.

Events

Brussels' most festive months are July and August. On the first Thursday in July there's the Ommegang pageant, a huge parade of nobles dressed in historic costumes. Belgium's colourful National Day is July 21, which also marks the start of the month-long Brussels Fair. Throughout the year there are jazz fesitvals, religious processions, local fairs, film festivals and classical music extavaganzas. Carnival is a big do - people shake off the winter blues with outrageous celebrations ranging from balls to masked parades. In Ypres, the Kattenfestival (Festival of the Cats) involves imitation cats being hurled from the town's belfrey!

Being a pocket-size sort of country, Belgium is cheap to get around in, but budget hotels are both rare and heavily booked - especially in summer. On the food front, eating out is far better for your palate than it is for your wallet. Travelling modestly, you could survive on US$30 per day. But if you don't fancy sleeping in public toilets, figure on at least US$50 per day.

Tipping isn't obligatory, and haggling is not exactly a national pastime.

The city of choice for Eurocrats, Brussels is sumptuous, historic and luxuriously cosy. With artistry richer than chocolate, architecture as graceful as its cuisine and diversity frothier than the beer, Brussels is an heirloom of northern culture at its best.

Get lost in a dense circuit of cobblestone alleys before emerging, suddenly, into the magnificence of the Grand Place, with its baroque guildhalls, splendid Gothic town hall and ringside gaggle of pavement cafés and intimate restaurants. Then see what else the backstreets of Brussels have to offer!

Antwerp is Belgium's most underrated tourist destination. Few places tangle the old and the new quite so enchantingly. Here eclectic Art Nouveau mansions stare back at Neo-Renaissance villas, and medieval castles provide a magical backdrop for the city's myriad bars and cafes.

Antwerp's old city, built around the country's most impressive cathedral, is as beautiful and intimate as it was centuries ago. Cobbled lanes and secretive backstreets lead to beguilingly-named squares. This was also Rubens' home, and the city's museums and churches are peppered with his work.

Europe's best-preserved medieval city and Belgium's most visited town, this 13th-century 'living museum' was suspended in time five centuries ago by the silting of its river. Blessed with two medieval cores, the Markt and the Burg, the town also boasts some of the country's most compelling art collections.

Home to deep river valleys and high forests, Belgium's southeast corner is often overlooked by travellers hopping between the old art towns and the capital. But here you'll find tranquil villages nestled into the grooves of the Meuse, Lesse and Ourthe valleys or sitting atop the verdant hills.

This museum is well worth a couple of hours, particularly when combined with a visit to the nearby Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kinst (SMAK). The Flemish Primitives are well-represented, as are Reubens, Jordaens, Van Dyk, Ensor and Delvaux.

Nearly 60km (37mi) southwest of Antwerp is the city of Ghent (Gent in Flemish and Gand in French), once a medieval-era powerhouse due to its 14th-century status as the largest cloth producer in Europe, and rebellious when it came to tax increases. It is now the capital of the Flanders province of Oost-Vlaanderen and home to a significant university student population. The most famous medieval attraction in Ghent is inside the otherwise unremarkable St Baafskathedraal (St Baaf's Cathedral): a stunningly overwrought piece of art by 15th-century artist Jan Van Eyck called De Aanbidding van het Lams God (Adoration of the Mystic Lamb). It may sound like the title of a Frank Zappa song, but this 20-panel altarpiece with its allegorical portrait of Christ's death is thought to be one of the earliest-known oil paintings, not to mention a luminous work of genius.

Other Middle-Aged features of Ghent include Belfort, a 14th-century belfry that stretches up from Botermarkt and allows magnificent city views, and Gravensteen, an imposing 12th-century moated and turreted castle. Burdened with the unfortunate acronym SMAK, the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (Museum of Contemporary Art) is worth a browse for its collection of Belgian artistry and the work of international gate-crashers like Warhol and Christo. Another decent local gallery is Museum voor Schone Kunsten (Museum of Fine Arts), which has Flemish Primitives like Rubens, Van Dyck and Delvaux on display.

Gender equality comes to kitschy peeing statues! Normally it's a cherubic Y chromosome-endowed micturator that gets a guernsey, but the girls strike back with Jeaneke-Pis. Sister of Mannekin Pis (the little boy weeing), she can be found in Brussels' central restaurant strip, Rue des Bouchers (Butcher's Street).

Within the town of Ypres, this tragic memorial is inscribed with the names of 55,000 British and Commonwealth troops lost forever in the quagmire of the Flanders trenches during WWI. A bugler sounds the last post here every evening at 8pm

To the east, near the city of Liege, Tongeren has the honour (along with Tournai) of being Belgium's oldest town. Settled in 15 BC as a base for Roman troops, the town has an important collection of Gallo-Roman remains, and is surrounded by Roman and medieval walls.

Activities

Outdoorsy types tend to head straight for the Ardennes, Belgium's year-round outdoor playground. Here you can ski in winter and in summer kayak or go hiking or mountain biking (using a vélo tout terrain, or VTT) along a good network of forest tracks. Another worthy attraction are the prehistoric limestone grottoes and caves in the area (particularly around the towns of Han-sur-Lesse, Rochefort and Dinant), which offer plenty of scope for subterranean explorers.

History

Belgium's big-gun neighbours France, Germany and England (which faces it across the North Sea) long favoured this little nation as a nice spot to kill each other. Conquered by German tribes, Christianised by the 7th century and carved up during the Frankish Empire in 1100, much of Belgium enjoyed a golden age of prosperity and artistry under the French Duke of Burgundy during the 14th century. This was a boom time for the cloth-trading Flemish towns of Ypres, Bruges and Ghent. With the demise of Bruges due to British competition and a silted river, Antwerp soon became the greatest port in Europe.

The golden age began to tarnish in the mid-15th century when the Low Countries (present-day Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) were inherited by Spain, igniting a long battle against Catholic Spanish rule. The fanatically Catholic Philip II of Spain sent in the Inquisition to enforce Catholicism. Thousands were imprisoned or executed before full-scale war erupted in 1568. The Revolt of the Netherlands lasted 80 years and in the end Holland and its allied provinces booted out the Spaniards. Belgium and Luxembourg stayed under Spanish rule. Napolean's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo near Brussels led to the creation, in 1814, of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, melding Belgium and Luxembuorg into the Netherlands. But the Catholic Belgians revolted, winning independence in 1830.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place (aka France and Germany), Belgium managed to retain its neutrality throughout the century, at the end of which Flemish nationalism flowered. Meanwhile, King Leopold II began to amass a fortune for himself (and, indirectly, for his subjects) by his genocidal exploitation of his holdings in the African Congo.

Despite Belgium's neutral policy, the Germans invaded in 1914. Another German attack in 1940 saw the entire country taken over within three weeks. King Leopold III's questionably early capitulation to the Germans led to his abdication in 1950 in favour of his son, King Baudouin, whose popular reign ended with his death in 1993. Childless, Baudouin was succeeded by his brother, the present King Albert II.

Postwar Belgium was characterised by an economic boom, later accentuated by Brussels' appointment as the headquarters of the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). The Belgium of today is home to a vast army of diplomats, and with them has come a rampant, highly bureaucratic form of internationalism - followed closely by bland skyscrapers and intimidatory restaurants. While the country's number one city is being busily groomed to suit the rest of Europe, the Belgians themselves remain nonchalant - the true spirit of the country will always emanate from its people and its past.

Belgium was rocked during the nineties by public revelations of incompetence during the investigation of a paedophile case. This prompted 300,000 Belgians to march through the streets of Brussels in 1996 to protest against the country's malfunctioning police and judicial systems.

In December 1999, Prince Philippe, 39-year-old heir to the Belgian throne, married a speech therapist with Flemish and Walloon roots, finishing an eventful century with what many Belgians hope is an optimistic flourish.

Environment

Squeezed between the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and France, Belgium is one of Europe's tiddlers. The north is flat, the south dominated by the picturesque Ardennes and the 65km North Sea coastline monopolised by resorts, except for a few patches of windswept dunes. Lower Belgium is criss-crossed by a network of canals. Seasons are mild, but the warmest months (July and August) are also the wettest.

Getting There & Away

Belgium has two international airports, the main one being Zaventem, 14km north-east of Brussels. The other one, Deurne, is close to Antwerp and has less frequent flights to Amsterdam, London, Liverpool and Dublin only. Depending on when you leave, flights to London can be cheaper from Deurne. If you're in Europe already, a bus or train is the best option. Eurolines and Hoverspeed Citysprint operate international bus services to and from Belgium. Belgium Railways has frequent international services. Brussels has three main station and is the central hub, with lines in all directions. Two companies operate car/passenger ferries to and from Britain: North Sea Ferries (overnight from Zeebrugge to Hull) and Oostende Lines/Sally Ferries (six boats daily between Ostend and Ramsgate).

Getting Around

Getting around Belgium is cheap and easy, which makes up for the rather expensive, and often heavily booked, accommodation. While there are plenty of buses and hiring a car is an easy enough option, the country's transport system is dominated by its efficient rail network. The fastest services are the InterCity trains, backed up by InterRegional and local trains. In the more remote areas, buses take up the slack. There's a good public transport system (including trams and a small metro system in Brussels and Antwerp). Taxis, which lurk outside most train stations, are metered and expensive. Cycling is popular in the flat north and many roads have separate lanes for bikes. Railway stations rent bikes. It's also possible to hire a boat to cruise along the many rivers and canals.