Leuven

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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.

Last updated: Sep 24, 2008

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Ancient fountain/well in the Groot Begignhof of Leuven.
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Ancient fountain/well in the Groot Begignhof of Leuven.

Lonely Planet photographer
  • Martin Moos
  • Lonely Planet photographer
  • Groot or Great Begijnhof in Leuven.
  • St Peter's church (St Pieterskerk), a late-Gothic structure (1425).
  • 236 statues adorn the wall of the late-Gothic Town Hall (Stadhuis) on Grote Markt.
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