Flanders 2023

We've been in Belgium in September 2023 for ten very enjoyable and instructive days spent in Flanders, the Dutch speaking part of this country.

After three days on the coast to visit Bruges, we based ourselves in Dendermonde and explored the cities of Ghent and Antwerp plus a day trip to Brussels.

Full map of all Belgium pages

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Thinking of our next destination: Italy and Portugal come to mind, or maybe the time has finally come for a US road trip…

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Introduction

Antwerp, Groete Markt: fountain of Brabo. Legend says that an evil giant used to cut off the hand to all ship captains who moored in the area and refused to pay him toll, then throwing their hands into the river Scheldt. That is until the Roman soldier Brabo came and did the same to the giant. This explains how Antwerp came to its name by combining the words "(h)ant" (hand) and "werpen" (throw).

We have lived in Belgium for one and a half years in 1996-97 when Vero worked in Brussels for Motorola on projects for the Belgian and Dutch Police Organisations. But it was work: we did some day trips mostly around Brussels but did not really get to explore the country. And this year, as we were thinking of a short trip to the continent (unlike France for a change), we decided to head to Flanders and explore this part of Belgium.

We were not disappointed. We visited Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp, went for a day in Brussels and had ten very busy days, taking advantage of our Museum Pass and learning a lot about the country and its history on the way.

We are fans of medieval paintings and of the Flemish Primitives and visiting the Fine Arts museums of those cities was a highlight of our stay (we brought back a lot of pictures, so stay tuned).

See the Blog section for some stories and trip details
We have many pictures to share in the Photos section.

Finally, we have a full site map of all Flanders 2023 pages; the other sections have local maps (see Blog Map and Photos Map and index pages (see Blog Index and Photos Index).