The Spirit of the Places is a new multilingual publication on Substack. It tells you about cities, artists, writers, architecture, and heritage. Including our culinary heritage. Because Belgium is also a country of discreet but connoisseur gourmets.

L’The Spirit of the Places is the latest project of our association, Formation 3.0 asbl (non-profit).It is a publication on Substack, where we also publish our newsletter. in this article. Et avec lequel nous publions aussi notre lettre d’information Pédagogies Actives.

The Spirit of the Places is a multilingual newsletter, published in French and English and soon, in Italian as well. It is both a newsletter, an online magazine and a podcasts series.

A multimedia magazine to help you meet Belgium in other ways!

When you speak of Belgium, some words immediately come to your mind, lile:

• the Atomium
• Belgian fries
• Belgian jokes
• Binches' carnival

But, Belgium is also many other things. It is a relatively young country (200 years in 2031), but it has roots in a deep history and a rich and colourful past.

This is the land of the Flemish Old Masters, such as Jan Van Eyck and Quentin Metsys, of Bruegel and Rubens. It's also the home of Toots Thielemans, a great musician whose immense talent was matched only by his indefatigable kindness. And then there are the towns steeped in history: a battleground for many European wars, Belgium was traversed by the religious convulsions of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, by Napoleonic troops and by those of the Third Reich. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Belgium today is a small, cosmopolitan country that is home to many international institutions and showcases its cultural wealth.

From Flemish cities to post-colonial African art

Flemish cities, of course, are an important feature of Belgium:

• Ghent
• Bruges
• Antwerp
• Mechlin
• Leuven

Almost all of them have preserved architectural and artistic treasures of the highest order. From cathedrals to the altarpiece by the Van Eyck brothers.But Flanders isn't just about its pictorial or military past, it's also a vibrant, dynamic society that knows how to reinvent itself through new technologies while at the same time showcasing its age-old traditions.

Brussels will entice you with its colourful neighbourhoods, where a wealth of architecture rubs shoulders with Europe's most colourful flea market, where more than 100 languages are spoken and not just Brusseleir, like Madame Chapeau (a famous female character, often played by a male actor, in a popular play), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bossemans_et_Coppenolle).

Wallonia is not to be outdone, with Spy and Sclayn occupied since the Neanderthals, its collieries transformed into ecomuseums and its surrealist blossoming.

This is the kind of Belgium that can surprise, dazzle or amuse you, and we want you to discover it. In French withl'Esprit des Lieux and in English with The Spirit of the Placesand, soon, the Italian version.

You can subscribe to these publications for €5 a month. But for the first issue, we're letting you discover it in its entirety, free of charge. We begin with an article on a Beninese artist who is exhibiting in Brussels: https://lespritdeslieuxbelgique.substack.com/p/fouzys-spectres-dialoguing-with-the at the Ochola Gallery..

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