BELGIUM – Having explored the south-western suburbs of Liège in the last post, I will take you on an almost circular tour of the north-western ones in this post, starting about a kilometer from where we left off.
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BELGIUM – Situated in the steep-sided valley of the Meuse river, the city of Liège lies at the meeting points of several distinct regions. To the north and west, the craggy landscape surrounding the valley merges with the plateau of the Hesbaye, an empty agricultural region of more gradual hills. The extensive suburbs of Liège…
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BELGIUM – I have long found the region of eastern Belgium just south of the Dutch border, and just west of the German border, to be particularly interesting. So close to the Netherlands, yet so different, this empty land of hills and old villages seems like time stood still, and feels strangely mysterious to me….
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BELGIUM – When I worked as a freelance language teacher in Liège, I sometimes taught adolescents in the village of Dalhem. As it was a good 17 kilometers uphill from my house, I would often go there by bus, and back using my folding bike (which was mostly down hill of course). I made pictures…
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ITALY – Whereas nearby Milan is know for fashion and finance, its neighbour to the east, Turin (IT: Torino), is known as a hard-working industrial city. It is most notably the home of car manufacturer Fiat, and one of the most important economic centers of the country. But it is also much more than that,…
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PORTUGAL – The capital of Portugal is a magnificent city. But having visited it after Portugal’s even more spectacular second city, Porto, I found it much more ordinary and less exotic. I would probably have made many more pictures of Lisbon if I had visited it first. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it,…
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PORTUGAL – I’m not usually a fan of exaggerated titles, but for me, no word describes Portugal’s second city better than ‘spectacular’.
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BELGIUM – The winter of 2014-15 only lasted one day. And on that day, December the 28th, my friend and WPP co-founder and I set out to continue our exploration of provincial Belgium between my home in Liège and his home in Rijkevorsel. Setting out from Rijkevorsel, we drove south through the Kempen, an empty…
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BELGIUM – There’s always a turning point in autumn, after which it suddenly feels more like winter. And sometimes that turning point is in the middle of the day. It was on the bright and sunny morning of such a day, October the 19th 2014, that a friend and I set for a bike ride…
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BELGIUM – A town of about 85,000 inhabitants most know for its carnival, Aalst is not quite one of the major towns in Belgium. Situated roughly half way between Brussels and Ghent, it is also not a place many people (inside or outside Belgium) consider visiting, drawn as they are to those bigger and much…
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BELGIUM – A walk with my parents in Glons, a village to the north of
Liége in a region called the Hesbaye (NL: Haspengouw), 2014-10-04.
BELGIUM – Twenty five kilometers south-west of Brussels, Enghien is a small town at meeting point of various regions. Situated just on the Walloon (French-speaking) side of the border with (Dutch-speaking) Flanders, Enghien (NL: Edingen) is one of 12 officially bilingual Belgian municipalities outside of Brussels. It is also on the edge of Picardy, which…
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BELGIUM – Halle (pop.: 38,000) is a provincial Flemish (Dutch-speaking) town sandwiched between Brussels 10 kilometers to the north and Wallonia (the French-speaking part of Belgium) 3 kilometers to the south. It is therefore somehow different from everything that surrounds it. It is also rather a pretty little town. Pictures taken on 2007-12-15 and 2016-01-16. 1….
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BELGIUM – The area around Braine-le-Château, a French-speaking village 25 kilometers south of Brussels, is a great destination for a peaceful country walk, which is why I have been there often with my dad.
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BELGIUM – Ath (NL: Aat) is a town with about 30,000 inhabitants roughly half way between Brussels and Lille. Situated in the cultural region of Walloon Picardy (where people speak the same dialect as across the border in French Piccardy), Ath has a slightly more French feel than much of Belgium. I visited it with my…
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BELGIUM – Hidden in the wooded hills of the eastern Ardennes, lies the backdrop for stories by Aghatha Christie, a town where the rich and famous (including kings, queens, tsars and tsarinas) used to meet on their holidays. That town is Spa, the place that gave us the word for all resorts with thermal springs….
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BELGIUM – Having shown you you the Land of Herve, one of my favourite parts of Belgium, in the snow, I will now show you what it looks like in high summer. These pictures were taken on June 13 2013, during a bike ride that took me north along the river Meuse before cycling back…
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THE NETHERLANDS – The Achterhoek, which roughly translates as ‘Back Corner’, is a region in the eastern Netherlands that borders Germany to the south and east. Relatively empty by Dutch standards and mostly known for agriculture, it has a reputation in the rest of the country similar to that of the Midwest in the United…
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BELGIUM – To the east of Liège lies a region that I have always found particularly atmospheric and mysterious: the Pays de Herve, or land of Herve. I went for a walk there with a friend on a snowy day in February 2013. 1. To get to the starting point of our walk, we had…
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BELGIUM / FRANCE – A week’s excursion in what has to be one of the most picturesque corners of the Ardennes.
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