How to capture Flanders in brief? There are its ancient cities of Bruges and Ghent of course. There is also the port of Antwerp. But what about pralines and jenever, frites and beers? Then there’s Rubens and Bruegel. Tapestry, lace and miniatures. It seems that Flanders has too many aspects to sum it up in one short sentence.

Flanders borders onto the North Sea, and is situated between The Netherlands and France. It is the northern part of Belgium. The most important cities of Europe - London, Paris, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Köln, Bonn and Luxembourg - are all situated within a radius of 300 km around Flanders’ capital Brussels.

Ever since the Middle Ages, Flanders has been at the crossroads of the great European trade routes. Flemish merchants swarmed out to every corner of the then known world. Foreign merchants and artists came to Flanders endowing the magnificent Flemish cities with prosperity and cultural vitality.

Flemish people speak Dutch and can look back on an illustrious past with splendid cities abounding in culture, art and world famous painters. Even so, nowadays Flanders still is a well kept secret: the world of top class contemporary art and design, pop and classical music, finance, gourmet, sport, its natural landscape… Antwerp recently was mentioned as one of the ten trendiest cities of the world in a famous international travel magazine.