Things to do in Belgium

At barely 25, Jules de Hemptinne stood at the cradle of a cotton spinning and weaving mill on the Kolveniersgang.

At the edge of a flooded clay pit, a rusting clay dredger recalls the mechanical mining of clay for the brick industry.

Three mysterious concrete structures stretch over a distance of hundreds of metres.

Antwerp has been connected to the Netherlands by rail since 1854. In the early days, trains wriggled through the city centre at street level, which was not ideal. Indeed, steam locomotives caused a lot of noise and odour during their passage.

The invention of the Bessemer process in 1856 made large-scale steel production possible, heralding the start of the Second Industrial Revolution.
 

The unfinished concrete carcass of a ghost hotel has been receiving its first visitors since early 2025 after more than half a century of vacancy and decay.

You will find relics of the former railway yard Spoor Oost along the ring track around Antwerp.

A cooling tower rests next to steel company Carsid's mothballed power plant.

Four concrete cooling towers flank the former Beringen mine power plant, the only preserved mine cooling towers in the Limburg mining region.

Flemish workers flocked to Mouscron during the interwar to work in textile factories. The city, therefore, had to pull out all the stops to cope with the growing population.