Belgium Hotels

Belgium always had a lot more going for it than the faceless political and bureaucratic buildings that litter the outskirts of its capital of Brussels would have you believe. A string of engaging historic cities such as Bruges, Ghent, Liege, Namur and Brussels itself offer impressive architecture, lively nightlife, first rate cuisine and numerous other attractions for visitors. Today, the anachronistic images of boring Belgium have been well and truly banished as more and more people discover its very individual charms for themselves.

There is reinvented Antwerp a hotbed of fashion and slick modern design, along with the more bucolic charms of the beautiful mountainous Ardennes region to the east and the delightfully picturesque Meuse Valley as well as the sweeping sand of the coastline resorts of the western seaboard.

Belgium is also a land whose specialties include ubiquitous beers, delicate chocolates, moules frites and Belgian waffles. Easy to both access and to travel around, pocket sized Belgium is divided into the Flemish north Flemish speaking and the Walloon south French speaking. Brussels is the capital is the heart of both the country and the European Union as well as the headquarters of NATO.

Belgium's democracy is of the typically stable cautiously progressive, western-European liberal type. The principal domestic problem is continuing tension between the Flemish speaking north and the French speaking south of the country.

However, throughout the years, Belgium has evolved towards an efficient federal system. Five reforms have been necessary to achieve this (in 1970, 1980, 1988-89, 1993 and 2001). In 2005, Belgium celebrated 25 years of federalism and for the first time ever, article one of the Belgian Constitution stated that 'Belgium is a federal state made out of communities and regions'