Belgium: Between Emigration and Culture

This itinerary represents my last visit to Belgium, because in fact I have been to this country more than once. My municipality is twinned with Etterbeek, one of the many municipalities that make up the urban agglomeration of Brussels, and here I came a couple of times on a summer camp and on another occasion I came alone by train (see the relevant itineraries). During a tour of Germany and the Netherlands I reached it for the last time with my Fiat Tempra together with my partner. We entered Belgium from the border with the Netherlands and made our first stop in the morning at Antwerp. Having parked the car, we strolled through the city, where the historic centre with its ancient buildings intersects with extremely modern areas.

Antwerp is world-famous for diamond cutting; on the jewellers' street it's easy to spot an Orthodox Jew in dark clothing, hat and long beard, for it is they who hold the diamond monopoly. Here we also visit the Diamond Museum. A little further on we enter an old printing works, one of the first in the world to use movable type, where printing techniques are explained, with period machinery and old works on display. After going into a modern supermarket we return to our car and continue to Brussels, where we visit the Grand Place, one of the most scenographic squares in Europe, overlooked by ancient houses, and the nearby bronze statuette of the little boy peeing. We then move on to Etterbeek, a modern municipality in the outskirts of the capital where I had been as a boy. We set off again for Ecausinnes, where we spend the night.

The following morning we meet two of the leading representatives of the local Italian community, brothers among other things, made up above all of people who emigrated from my area in the years after the Second World War. With them I am received at the Town Hall by the Mayor of the city. One of my two fellow countrymen invites us to lunch in a fine restaurant and then takes us to visit his fibreglass-processing factory. We then go to his house for a toast and he also takes us to his brother's home, where we say goodbye. We set off again for Faulx les Tombes, where we spend the night. The next morning I happily see again the summer camp where I stayed for two consecutive years as a boy, today a dependency of the nearby castle converted into a hotel, and the riding school where I took a few riding lessons.

We go down to Namur, where we take a stroll through the centre among the stalls of a market, then continue to Anthines. Here there is another large community from my area. Even the Mayor who received me at his home is from my parts and has now become a Member of the European Parliament for Belgium. We meet several local families of emigrants who have kept our dialect, larding it with a bit of Gallicism. With one of them we visit the surrounding localities such as Sprimont, we dine and sleep at his house in Combiain au Pont. From there, the following morning we return home, leaving Belgium via the border with Luxembourg.