Introducing Leuven

Picturesque, intimate and lively… Leuven is yet another fabulous Flemish city, and again it’s just a hop, skip or jump from Brussels (25km). Leuven (Louvain in French) is the chief town of the province of Vlaams-Brabant. It’s an ancient capital – the home of the Dukes of Brabant since 1200 – and in medieval times an important cloth trading centre. Today it boasts one of Belgium’s most ornate town halls and is Flanders’ oldest university town. Some 25, 000 students – more than a quarter of the town’s population – zoom around by pushbike here, giving the city an upbeat, creative air. Leuven is also Belgium’s beer capital, home to the internationally known red-label Stella Artois.