American Travels crossed the pond to traverse the land of chocolate and… plants.
I landed in mainland Europe’s North-West region known as the Be-ne-lux and the Low Countries. The area is named for its flat and often below-sea-level topography. The region’s countries are Belgium, the Netherlands (home to Holland) and Luxembourg.
I discovered my bucket list cities, Belgium’s capital Brussels, and the Netherlands’ capital Amsterdam.
The two countries are famous for painters Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Vincent Van Gogh, Holocaust victim Anne Frank, actress Audrey Hepburn, musician Eddie Van Halen, the Smurfs, waffles, height, clogs, bikes, chocolate, tulips, windmills, canals, and importantly a tradition of tolerance.
The poetic nature of Belgium and the Netherlands is found in gastronomy too. Common eats of either country don’t seem to compete but complement. Where Belgium is renowned for several sweets and snacks such as chocolate, waffles and fries (the original creation country), The Netherlands has various not typically accessible richly flavored cuisines such as Surinamese and Indonesian dishes.
After a surprising, informative conversation en route to Brussels with a Luxembourger seat neighbor, as a geography nerd, I was unjustly satisfied experiencing the sentiment of all three countries theoretically.
Belgium
Belgium’s two main regions are Flanders being a Flemish (Dutch-influenced region) and Wallonia being Francophone.
Founded in 979, Brussels became Belgium’s and the Benelux’s biggest city and later the de facto European Union capital. The Francophone city trailblazed the Art Nouveau architectural styles.
Brussels is home to three UNESCO world heritage sites. After New York City, Brussels is the most racially diverse major Western city. Non-Belgians constitute nearly 75% of the city’s population, and non-Europeans constitute 42%. Within the national sport of soccer, 30% of their 2022 world cup line-up was Black.
Pierre Kompany arrived in Belgium as a Congolese refugee in 1975. He became one of Brussels’ boroughs, Ganshoren, a predominantly white locality’s first Black mayor in 2018.
Belgium is usually exalted for its comic strip tone to its street art dating back to the 20s,’ but recently, pieces depicting ethnic tropes have stirred debate.
In particular, St. Louis’ own Josephine Baker’s Brussels mural garnered controversy and discourse last year. The mural portrayed Baker being guided by a disproportionately large white man.
Works will now feature little info boxes and or QR codes acknowledging harmful stereotypes featured in some murals.
I always wanted to see the homeland of one of my favorite musicians, Stromae, a Brussels native of Rwandan and Belgian descent.
I connected with Stromae’s art and his life story as I am also half African and was raised in a Western country but within a community of only half my ethnic background. His father died in Rwanda in 1994, and my father fled Liberia at the onset of the 1989 Liberian Civil War.
My most listened-to album is Stromae’s album Racine Carrée. The record became the best-selling French album in 2013 and 2014.
Talking to another Belgian, he described Stromae who’s a producer, singer, rapper, writer and designer, as a ‘local hero.’ He delves into love, envy, mental health, discrimination, and more. The national Belgian football team selected his song Ta fête for the 2014 World Cup.
With my good friend Marc Vincent, we strolled through Brussels’ old city and found a shop that revived my inner 13-year-old after stumbling upon a section honoring Stromae and the city’s revered artists with photos and information.
Another Belgian artist Jacques Brel, who’s been covered by Nina Simone and Ray Charles, was honored with a metro station in his name. If the proposition arises, I would be alongside the first non-Belgian residents to sign a petition for the Stromae metro station.
Marc and I celebrated European Union Day on May 9 by exploring the European Parliament, Commission and Council. We learned a great deal while touring inside foundational buildings for the EU’s political organization and hearing from a broad range of people from varied political parties and initiatives about sustainability, equality and, most prominently, the Ukraine invasion.
A standout moment of the trip and any place I’ve ever been was the UNESCO world heritage site and the city’s central square, Grand Place, at night. The plaza is like a painting; it feels like walking inside an ornate Christmas tree.
The Netherlands
The younger and smaller but more well-known Benelux city brother, Amsterdam, was founded in 1275 and is home to four UNESCO sites. Romance, excitement, trendy, and regality are preeminent Amsterdam descriptors.
My immediate impression of the picturesque city is it feels like the masculine answer to Venice. Adorned in Dutch Baroque / Neo-gothic architecture, Amsterdam is a true pedestrian and biker haven, home to a maze of canals, bridges, boats and, yes, nearly 900,000 bikes.
One of the most unique and memorable aspects of the city is the floating houses lining the canals, either on a tiny port or a literal boat.
There is not a city as forward-thinking, idealistic, cutting edge economically but well-preserved and skyscraper-less as the Dutch capital. As the adage goes, ‘the city is what you make of it’ could not be more fitting.
As Anne Frank is the first apparent name when I think of Dutch people, I dove into World War II history, and the Dutch Resistance Museum shot to the top of my must-see list.
When researching relatively recent Dutch history, Amsterdam has a sobering reality.
In the world’s deadliest conflict, the Dutch city Rotterdam, founded in 1270, grew among the continent’s major economic centers, eventually holding the continent’s largest port. The Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler invaded the neutral Netherlands and practically leveled Rotterdam in 1940, with around 85,000 homes alone being bombed. Hitler then demanded an unconditional surrender, or the country’s other cities would face the same fate, and with that threat, Nazi Germany occupied the country for five years.
One of the utmost complex dilemmas was posed to the Netherlands, surrender and subject your population to genocide and immense oppression or fight and face your cities’ demolition. Rotterdam would later rise again to become an economic hub, but instead of its historic charm, it’s extremely modern.
Recommendations:
Brussels:
Grand Place, Parc du Cinquantenaire, Royal Gallery of Saint Hubert, and Mont des Arts.
Amsterdam:
Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, the Market Albert Cuyp Markt, Dutch Resistance Museum and Canal tour.
Final case:
The Benelux region is interesting, fun, and universal. With a population a bit less than Texas in an area a bit smaller than South Carolina with excellent public transportation, one can access countless cultural centers of the countries within two hours and the vast majority in less time by train. A whopping 95% of the Dutch population and 55% of the Belgian population is fluent in English.
The region is more eclectic than words can illustrate. Since the cities are flat, they are very walkable. However, there are many ‘high’ aspects when experiencing the Low Countries.
