15 November is Dynasty Day or King’s Day in Belgium. 15 November being the name day of Leopold, the name of three of the seven Kings of the Belgians. To mark this occasion, and inspired by a Belga News Agency post, let’s take a look at names of villages, towns, municipalities and cities in the…
Tag: East Flanders
Antwerp-Linkeroever Railway Station to reopen after all?
Belgium‘s train operator NMBS / SNCB and and rail infrastructure manager Infrabel are examining the feasibility of reopening a train station on Linkeroever (Left Bank) in Antwerp. Koen Kennis (N-VA), alderman for Mobility, expressed cautious optimism about the idea during a recent city council meeting.
Belgium to host Eurovision Song Contest 2026? But in which city?
Coming Saturday, 1 February 2025, a jury and the television watching public will decide will represent Belgium for Flemish public broadcaster VRT at the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest in Basel in Switzerland. Oddly, Belgium has been on top of the bookmakers’ charts for the outright win. Íf, and it’s a big íf, that happens, which…
MUSEUMS IN BELGIUM | museumPASSmusées looks back onto 2023 and forward to 2024
Belgium‘s museumPASSmusées or Museum Pass looks back ont 2023 and forward to 2024. In 2023, museumPASSmusées included over 235 participating museums all over Belgium. In Flanders, the Brussels-Capital Region and Wallonia.
Riding the Kersttram or Christmas Tram in Antwerp
As they did in 2022, heritage tramway organisations in Flanders scheduled tram rides in the Advent to Christmas 2023. In Antwerp, this is done by VlaTAM, the Vlaamse Tram- en Autobusmuseum or Flemish Tram And Bus Museum. It’s called Kersttram or Christmas Tram.
City of Antwerp annexes Borsbeek, which becomes the tenth district on 1 January 2025
On Monday 18 December 2023, the municipal councils of both the City of Antwerp and the Town of Borsbeek approved the merge. Borsbeek will become the tenth district of Antwerp. Antwerp is unique in Flanders in that it has a two-tier system of municipal government with a city council and district councils.
ANTWERP | 2.2 million day tourists and 398K overnight stays in the summer of 2023
The City of Antwerp looks back on a festive summer with good numbers. “The Antwerp tourism sector can look back on a busy summer, with good visitor numbers thanks to the many fun events in the city. The changeable weather did not prevent many tourists from visiting the city and most tourism subsectors therefore recorded…
FREE STATE OF ANTWERP | The City could have run the parking lot
“Antwerpen is stad en de rest is parking.” A popular phrase saying “Antwerp is city and the rest is parking area” originated in the 1970s or 1980s when Antwerp experienced some cityscape changing urban development. But what if Antwerp actually did run the that parking lot? In 1830, a French plan invented the Free State…
Plans for a steam train heritage service between Brussels and Mechelen shelved
“If all goes well, Train World will operate steam train between Brussels and Mechelen (Malines), reports Gazet van Antwerpen. The service could start in 2020″, we wrote in 2019. Quod non. Minister for Mobility George Gilkinet (Ecolo) declared in Parliament it’s not happening because it’s too complicated.
LIMBURG | Bokrijk, an open-air museum of folk buildings heritage
On sunny October 2022 Tuesday, Jeroen and I visited Bokrijk, an open-air folk heritage museum near Genk in the province of Limburg. The Netherlands have the Nederlands Openluchtmuseum in Arnhem, Sweden has Skansen in Stockholm and Belgium has Bokrijk.
Trip By Trip 