Search - the low countries

Ostend is different. Other resorts along Belgium’s North Sea coastline are small, touristy places. But Ostend is a real city.

Derek Blyth visits the Sahara of the North.

Derek Blyth points out a unique Belgian phenomenon, the trade in paper beach flowers.

Derek Blyth expresses his love for the carillons of Flanders and the Netherlands.

Derek Blyth urges you to visit the old-fashioned pubs of Flanders, while you still have the chance.

The comic strip started in daily newspapers as a funny story at the back of the page. But is has evolved in the Netherlands and Belgium into a subtle and subversive art form. The Fleming Ever Meulen loves cars, houses and women. His illust...

The plan was to drive from Ghent to Kortrijk on the old Kortrijksesteenweg. Houses in various eclectic styles, hypermarkets, car showrooms, roadside brothels, bars and forgotten hotels, churches and a statue of a caribou perced on a rock. ...

The author sets off on the longest tram ride in the world, all the way along the Belgian coast from De Panne to Knokke: 67 kilometers, 68 stops. A strip of fantasies. Now and then he gets out of the vehicle to glance at a nudist beach, a f...

Derek Blyth goes on a literary pilgrimage in Willem Elsschot’s Antwerp.

Derek Blyth ends up in a deserted village that refuses to die.

Derek Blyth hits the road in a very Dutch phenomenon, the caravan.

Visit any town or city in Belgium and you will find fries. Derek Blyth pays tribute to the humble fritkot.

Derek Blyth lets himself be overwhelmed by the multi-talent Rubens. Or is it by his love for the human flesh?

Walking through Brussels, sooner or later you will come across Pieter Bruegel the Elder and his enigmatic art. Derek Blyth would join you in a minute.

Derek Blyth invites you to discover the Jewish Community of Antwerp, one of the largest in Europe.

Looking for remarkable places in the Low Countries, British journalist Derek Blyth ends up eating fast food from the wall in Amsterdam.

Did you know there is a Dutch town called Austerlitz with a pyramid nearby, built by Napoleon’s soldiers?

In the midst of nature, in the East Flemish municipality of Stekene, you can visit one of the largest private art collections in Europe.

The bicycle and car sharing that we know today can be traced back to the ‘White Bicycles’ and ‘White Cars’ initiated by the Provo movement.

Most people assume the sensible Dutch have always cycled. But the story is more complicated.

Utrecht is so much more than a pleasant day trip from Amsterdam. Discover its picturesque canals, lively pub culture, the world’s largest bike parking garage and a cute little rabbit that pops up everywhere in town.

Calling Kortrijk a hidden pearl along the River Lys might be too much honour. Yet there are numerous treasures to be found.

Dutch artists painted a giant bookcase on an apartment building in Utrecht featuring residents’ favorite books.

Whoever visits the Netherlands, can't ignore them. Sooner or later you walk into one of the 550 Hema shops to buy a bicycle bell, sandwich or stapler. The brand is as Dutch as the tulip.

The small cemeteries in and around Ypres provide a unique way of understanding the First World War.

75 years ago, a German V2 bomb hit the popular Cinema Rex in Antwerp. 567 people were killed. It took more than a week to recover their bodies from under the rubble.

In the past 'Praathuisjes' were only used by old men and sailors to catch up with a cup of coffee. Now everyone is welcome.

Belgium's oldest city has refreshed its identity. Thanks to the Romans.

Rotterdam used to be a tough industrial city. Not any longer. It’s now got the energy of New York combined with the liveability of Copenhagen.

Since it was established in 1971, ‘De Engelbewaarder’ has been known as the first literary café in the Netherlands. Not only John Irving once drank a beer there.

It's early morning in Mechelen and the streets are empty. Derek Blyth is looking forward to wandering down the cobbled lanes, looking inside gothic churches, passing some time in the municipal museum, and ending up, as everyone does, in one...

In Hasselt there's no big square, no great art collection, none of the sense of ancient history you feel in nearby towns like Tongeren or Maastricht. Yet it's somehow quietly appealing. At the end of his day in Hasselt, Derek Blyth took a f...

When I visited Middelburg for the first time, back in the early 1980s, the town was an old-fashioned, religious place. It was a Sunday and everything was closed, except for the churches, which were full. It felt twenty years behind Amsterd...

When the author of this piece decided to drive from Brussels to Antwerp on the old N1 road, it was partly an attempt to discover the other Flanders, the space between the cities. He imagined that the whole journey would take a day at most. ...

To the author, it is impossible to imagine living in the Low Countries without talking Dutch. Deprived of the Dutch teaching he had as a native speaker of English, he would remain baffled by Dutch street names, like Beenhouwersstraat, Hands...

Some people have gone to France or Italy in search of passionate romance, but others have fallen hopelessly in love in the unpromising dampness of the Low Countries. The stories of James Boswell and Belle van Zuylen, Charlotte Brontë and he...

Beer drinking in Flanders goes back a long way. The rich heritage of Flemish beer used to be a well-kept secret, but the efforts of café owners and writers have helped to promote the image of Flemish ales. As word gets around, the names of ...

Utrecht seemed in 1979 like Utopia compared to the crumbling island monarchy the author had left behind. He was living in Maastricht when Thatcher went to war with Argentina. After Amsterdam he finally landed in Brussels. Sometimes Belgium ...

You can find them in the Old Hack drinking De Koninck or Leffe, the foreign correspondents covering the European Union in Brussels. They have little inclination to seek out stories outside the European “bubble”. But the Brussels press corps...

In December 1516, thanks to help from Erasmus, the first edition of Thomas More’s Utopia came off Dirk Martens’ presses in the university town of Leuven. Originally published in Latin, the fable begins in Antwerp, where More bumps into Gil...

Back in the 1880s, when Van Gogh was plodding through the Brabant potato fields, Eindhoven was just a small Catholic town. Now it is the fifth largest city in the Netherlands, with an acclaimed modern art museum and a world-class design ac...

Many Brontë experts have described Charlotte’s impressions of Belgium, but few have considered what the Belgians thought of Charlotte. The Brussels-based writer and translator Helen Mac-Ewan now fills this gap with her second carefully res...

Review of Derek Blyth's 'Flemish Cities Explored. Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Mechelen, Brussels & Louvain' (London, 1996)

British journalist Derek Blyth travels through the Low Countries and stops in cities that are worth visiting. Each time he looks at the place and its inhabitants through curious glasses.

You think you know Flanders and the Netherlands. But take it from us, you haven’t seen anything yet. British journalist Derek Blyth takes you on microadventures to L-Spots, hidden and exciting places in the Low Countries.

Our best society stories of 2019, handpicked by the editor.

Important to know