Off the beaten track in Europe: why Belgium’s Limburg province is a great place to visit
- With few international visitors, Limburg offers a traditional European experience – with some fun exceptions – and old-school hospitality
As Europe braces for an estimated 1.9 billion visitor nights this summer – prompting a clampdown on holiday rentals and riotous stag parties, strict limits on cruise ships, and even an entry fee for cities such as Venice – savvy travellers are seeking out quieter corners of the continent.
Tucked into western Belgium, and with nearby Germany and the Netherlands giving it a mildly cosmopolitan air, Limburg province seems to be very much traditional Europe: cobbled streets and low-rise architecture, sedate open-air markets selling rafts of cheese, charcuterie and freshly baked bread, and families astride bicycles that rarely need to engage their gears given the dearth of steep gradients.
It has no international airport, few international hotels or fast-food chains, and just a scattering of international visitors.
But gradually, and rather entertainingly, Limburg is upping its game.
The experimental art project Labiomista, in Genk, is a case in point. A tour of the project – erected on the site of a disused colliery, which later hosted a zoo – starts reassuringly enough at a three-storey, century-old Mosan Renaissance-style mansion that used to house the coal mine’s director.
