Belgium

In the west of Europe there is a country named Belgium. It's a relative small country with a coastline on the North Sea and one of the founding members of the European Union. Around 59% speaks Dutch in Belgium and the rest talks Belgian French. And there are around 10,5 million people in Belgium. There are a lot of great places to visit and in this article I am going to talk about three of them namely Bruges, Antwerp and Gent. I have been there many times and I really love Belgium I hope to give you a small idea of Belgium and maybe inspire you to go there also.

Bruges

Bruges is one of the most beautiful places of Belgium and has 117.000 inhabitants. Bruges is very famous for its historical and cultural inheritance. A lot of tourists visit Bruges every year and in the centre of Bruges there are over a 100 hotels and more then 9000 beds. An estimated 2 million people visit Bruges every year. Antwerp tries to keep as much cars as possible out of the centre and limits the speed to 30km an hour. There are a lot of things you can visit there like:
- Grote Markt
- The Burg
- Hof of Gruuthuse
- The Guido Gezellemusuem
- The city gates
- And the fish market
- The Monastery
- The holy chapel
- Jerusalem church.

Antwerp

Antwerp is the capital of the province Antwerp in Belgium. There are about 464.000 inhabitants in Antwerp. And this city has several nicknames like sinjoren that's from the Spanish word senor but it's also called the cookie city because of it's famous coffeecookies. This is also a very religious city, most people are Roman-Catholic but there are many more like Protestant-Church Orthodox-Church and also Islam and Jews.
The official language of Antwerp is Dutch and in some circles they speak French. There are also a lot of things you can see here like the Hessenhouse that was completed in 1564 in the north of Antwerp. The building has been used for several reasons but now they show some great expositions there. There are a lot of different bars in Antwerp and it is also a great city for Shopping and a lot of great museums there like:
- Etnografisch Museum
- Museum aan de stroom
- Museum Mayer van den Bergh
- Museum Ridder Smidt van Gelder.
- Stedelijk Prentenkabine
- Photomuseum
- Fashionmuseum

Gent

Gent is a great city in Flanders Belgium and is the capital of East Flanders. Gent is a very old city and there were already humans in Antwerp starting at the Stone and iron Age. Hostorians think that the name Gent is derived from Ganda and means confluence. A lot of medieval architecture is intact and therefore Gent is a beautifull city full of historical buildings. No cars are allowed in the centre and there are numerous cafes chruces theatres. Gent is also famous for its Mastel that's a sort of sweet bread and is famous for there big cultural events such as the Gentse Feesten, I Love Techno and Festival van Vlaanderen.