Bruges Pride Parade 2025 on Saturday 14 June

Bruges in West Flanders is having a pride, Bruges Pride. Apparently it’s the second edition. This event is organised by Bruges Pride Parade, Vrijplaats Brugge, BruLes, BruGay and the students of Queeropeans at the College of Europe (Collège d’Europe).

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…

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.

​In search of Belgian or Flemish cuisine in Antwerp

The Loodswezen on the Scheldt Quays in Antwerp is to become the Smaakhaven. The Flemish Government is investing a whopping 38 million euros to create a Flemish Culinary Centre. But what is Flemish cuisine, in extenso Belgian cuisine? Of course, Flanders being Flanders, and being governed by Flemish nationalists, it underlines the Flemishness of the…

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…

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.