Flemish Cities Explored

A guide to Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels, Mechelen and Leuven.

A walking guide to the six most beautiful towns of Belgium. Antwerp, Ghent, Leuven, Meehelen, & the jewel Bruges. This new edition introduces the delights of Ostend, the grandest seaside resort of the 19th century.

André de Vries explores the varied landmarks of Flanders, both rural and urban, to reveal this region's unique character. Considering great cities such as Ghent, Antwerp, and Bruges, he traces the development of a civic culture based on both trade and ideas, in which religion and language play a vital part. Looking too at the Flemish countryside, he explains the role of festivals and folk culture, gluttony and pleasure, in the survival of a strongly local identity.

The word ""Flemish"" refers to the people living in the North of Belgium and France and the South of the Netherlands. The Flemish, also called ""Flemings,"" are of Germanic (Frank) origin. When the Franks invaded what is now Belgium, they settled between the sea and the ""charcoal forest,"" a dense old-growth forest of beech and oak, which extended to the Rhine and formed a natural boundary during the Late Iron Age through Roman times into the Early Middle Ages. The county of Flanders was created 864 when the French king Charles the Bald granted it as a fief to his son-in-law Baldwin with the Iron Arm. Flanders was a part of France but distinguished itself from the rest of the country with its Germanic Flemish population and close economic ties to England. Unlike other French fiefs it was never returned to the French king's control, instead Flanders became a part of the duke of Burgundy's possessions in 1384, which would evolve into present day Belgium.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Bruges and West Flanders" by George W. T. Omond. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Cradle of northern Europe's later urban and industrial pre-eminence, medieval Flanders was a region of immense political and economic importance -- and already, as so often later, the battleground of foreign powers. Yet this book is, remarkably, the first comprehensive modern history of the region. Within the framework of a clear political narrative, it presents a vivid portrait of medieval Flemish life that will be essential reading for the medievalist -- and a boon for the many visitors to Bruges and Ghent eager for a better understanding of what they see.

Excerpt from Some Old Flemish Towns HE wide, at, well-watered plain lying between the French and Dutch frontier is a region rarely explored by the trav. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."