"Ancient ( postcard ) Belgium" a Belgium Travel Page by speed4turtles

Before we start " Welcome ".
Let me remind you that my normal tongue is Dutch and at the time i was going to school we must learn French as second language.
So please, If i do or write something wrong, forgive me .

Belgium is a small, highly developed and densely populated country (10 million of inhabitants) at the cross-roads of Western Europe. Belgium is one of the founding members of the European Community, and its capital, Brussels, is also the capital of the European Union. It is a federal state, with 3 relatively autonomous regions: Flanders in the north, where the language is Dutch ("Flemish"), Wallonia in the south, where the language is French, and the centrally located Brussels, which is officially bilingual. Belgium's rich history has left impressive churches, town halls, castles and works of art, dating back to the early Middle Ages, spread around the cities and country-side.

Belgium has possibly the highest "quality of life" in the world, as testified by its excellent food, housing, health care, education and infrastructure, its world records for high productivity and low poverty, and the appreciation of foreigners residing in Belgium. For a personal view on what distinguishes Belgium and the Belgian character (good living, pragmatism, food and drink, open-mindedness, compromise, privacy ...),

The National Institute for Statistics revealed that the number of nights spent in Belgium has increased in 2002. 6,7 million foreigners and 4,3 million Belgians stayed overnight 29 million times in the Belgian hotels, camp sites and holiday resorts. The Flemish region amounts some 17,6 million overnights spent. Wallonia and Brussels score lower with respectively 6,8 and 4,7 millions of nights spent.
In concern to the amount of visitors in 2002: the region of Flanders attracted the highest amount of visitors (6,1 million). Wallonia and in special the Ardennes are second in the ranking of favourite vacation destinations (2,5 million of visitors). The Brussels Capital Region ends up with 2,4 million of visitors in 2002. The Dutchmen are the most fervent visitors of our country, followed by the British. The French, the German, the American, the Italian, the Spanish and the Japanese follow subsequently.

The tourist trade is currently booming in Wallonia with the emergence of the Ardennes as an ideal "great-outdoors" holiday destination for visitors from all over Europe. With Mont Botrange reaching just 694 metres, the Ardennes can hardly be called mountains, but the dark forests, moors and peat bogs constitute a largely unspoiled, quite wild place. The towns of Marche-en-Famenne and La Roche-en-Ardenne are the main tourist centres, and offer just about every type of outdoor activity. The far eastern towns of Bastogne and Arlon are well visited by Americans who want to see the cemeteries and monuments to those who fell in the Battle of the Bulge which took place in the forbidding terrain of the Ardennes