Things to do in Belgium

For almost a century, the Veuve Van Enschodt bridge over the Rupel was the only connection between the Antwerp municipalities of Klein Willebroek and Boom.

As if the Atlantic Wall defensive strongholds in the Ostend dunes were not enough, Nazi Germany erected a second line of defence in the hinterland.

Trains have been thundering over the Vierendeel bridge in Grammene between Deinze and De Panne for over a century.

The dunes of Raversijde, a seaside resort west of East, are home to not one but two German bunker complexes.

Today, no trains run along the former railway line 109 between Mons and Chimay, but historic steam locomotives and diesel and electric railways of the local railways in Belgium do.

On Christmas Eve 1944, disaster struck Kalken when a V1 bomb hit the Vaart canal in Kalken at 4 pm.

You can still find a monumental remnant of a nineteenth-century lime kiln complex along the Scheldt.

In 1990, a Sherman tank was parked at Balgerhoeke lock in Eeklo in honour of the Canadians who liberated the town from German occupation on 15 September 1944.

A water tower in the Walloon Brabant village of Virginal-Samme still recalls the architecture of the 1940s.

After over half a century, a double staircase climbing up the railway embankment is the only reminder of the vanished Tertre Charbonnage train station.