Belgium

This has long been the crossroads and cockpit of Western Europe. In the Middle Ages the County of Flanders and the Duchy of Brabant grew rich on the cloth trade, and cities such as Bruges, Ghent, and Ypres were among the largest and wealthiest north of the Alps. Under the Burgundians and then the Habsburgs the "Low Countries" flourished; the Dutch Revolt split them, the Protestant north becoming the Dutch Republic while the Catholic south stayed under Habsburg rule, Spanish then Austrian.

After a spell under revolutionary and Napoleonic France — Waterloo was fought just south of Brussels in 1815 — the southern provinces were handed to the Netherlands, rebelled, and won independence as the neutral Kingdom of Belgium in 1830. That neutrality was violated by Germany in 1914, and Belgium was largely occupied in both world wars, with the Western Front's worst killing grounds in Flanders around Ypres.

King Leopold II, meanwhile, ran the Congo Free State from 1885 as a personal possession, a regime of forced labour and atrocity that killed millions before the Belgian state took it over in 1908; reckoning with that history is a live public debate. Post-war Belgium industrialised and then deindustrialised in the Walloon coal-and-steel belt while Flanders rose, feeding the regional tensions that produced today's federal state of three regions and three language communities.

Belgium holds two majority-language cultures under one flag, each oriented as much toward Paris or Amsterdam as toward the other, plus the cosmopolitan churn of Brussels. Government formation is famously slow — the country once went well over a year without an elected government — yet it keeps functioning, a standing national joke.

Shared touchstones exist. There is a deep painting tradition, from the Flemish Primitives through Bruegel and Rubens to the Surrealist Magritte. Comics are a national art form — Tintin, the Smurfs, Lucky Luke — with murals across Brussels and a dedicated museum. Art Nouveau was substantially invented in 1890s Brussels by Victor Horta. And there is a self-deprecating, surreal streak in the humour, epitomised by the small, irreverent Manneken-Pis.

Folkloric carnivals — Binche with its Gilles, Aalst, the Ommegang in Brussels — are UNESCO-recognised, and cycling is close to a religion, especially in Flanders, where the spring Tour of Flanders over cobbled climbs is a national event.

Belgium is one of the most urbanised countries in Europe, with around 11.7 million people in a small area and a nearly continuous belt of towns across the centre. Brussels is both the national capital and, in effect, the capital of the European Union, hosting the Commission, the Council, much of the Parliament, and the headquarters of NATO.

The language border is a real administrative line that runs through schooling, broadcasting, and politics, and moving between Flanders and Wallonia can feel like crossing between two countries that happen to share a train network. Living standards are high, the social safety net is generous, and shops keep shorter hours than in some neighbouring countries.

Daily life is comfortable and low-drama: excellent trains, good food close at hand, a strong café and market culture, and weekends given to family meals, cycling, football, and — in season — the carnivals and city festivals.

Belgium eats and drinks very well and knows it. Beer is the headline: a Trappist and abbey brewing tradition (Westvleteren, Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, Westmalle), the sour lambics and gueuze of the Brussels area, strong golden ales, and wheat beers, each with its own branded glass — Belgian beer culture is on the UNESCO list.

Then there are frites, twice-fried and served from a friterie in a cone with mayonnaise or a dozen other sauces; the country half-seriously claims to have invented them. Mussels with frites is the unofficial national dish, alongside carbonade flamande (beef braised in brown ale), waterzooi (a creamy Ghent stew), stoemp (mashed potato and vegetables), and the tiny grey North Sea shrimp.

Chocolate is a serious craft — the filled praline was invented in Brussels — and the country is dense with chocolatiers. Waffles come in two distinct forms: the lighter rectangular Brussels waffle and the denser, caramelised Liège waffle. Speculoos biscuits round out the sweet repertoire.

Bruges is the headline town — an almost implausibly preserved medieval core of canals, the Markt and its belfry, and the Beguinage; touristy but genuinely lovely, and quiet in the evenings. Ghent has a similar townscape with a younger, livelier feel and, in St. Bavo's Cathedral, the Van Eyck brothers' "Ghent Altarpiece."

Brussels centres on the Grand-Place, one of the great squares in Europe, with its guildhalls and biennial flower carpet, plus the Art Nouveau quarters and Horta houses, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts and the Magritte Museum, the Atomium from Expo 58, and the comic-strip route. Antwerp is Rubens's city, a global diamond centre with a monumental railway station and a strong fashion scene.

The Flanders Fields battlefields around Ypres — the rebuilt Cloth Hall, the Menin Gate and its nightly Last Post, and the war cemeteries — are a major place of remembrance. Wallonia offers a greener side: the forested hills, caves, and rivers of the Ardennes, Dinant on the Meuse, the spa town of Spa that gave the word to the world, and the Waterloo battlefield with its Lion's Mound.