The St. Rumbold's Cathedral, in the city of Mechelen, Belgium

 "Traveling through Belgium is like reading a history book of Europe, the pages of which contain the record of man’s struggle for freedom. Because it has so often been wounded, oppressed and bruised Belgium has placed against the background of her landscape the memories of her past: the belfries recalling her struggles; the churches, the spirit of her faith; the castles, the sentinels of her splendor." – Dore Ogrizek

======================================================

(in the province of Antwerp in the Flemish Region of Belgium) A representative democracy since achieving independence in 1830, Belgium is headed by a hereditary constitutional monarch. Initially, it had a unitary form of government. In the 1980s and ’90s, however, steps were taken to turn Belgium into a federal state with powers shared among the regions of Flanders, Wallonia, and the Brussels-Capital Region. Flanders, the Flemish Region, constitutes the northern half of Belgium. Flanders includes the provinces of Antwerp, East Flanders, Limburg, Flemish Brabant, and West Flanders. The northernmost province of the Flemish Region, Antwerp borders on the North Brabant province of the Netherlands. Its capital is Antwerp, which includes the Port of Antwerp, the second-largest seaport in Europe. The province consists of three arrondissements (districts): Antwerp, Mechelen and Turnhout. The eastern part of the province comprises the main part of the Campine region. Featured here is the pretty town of Mechelen, a hidden Flemish gem, in the Mechelen district of Antwerp Province. Students of the world-renowned Carillon bell-ringing school provide an atmospheric soundtrack for sipping coffee at a sidewalk café in one of the town's charming squares. Many pedestrian areas make this a delightful town to stroll about, while admiring hundreds of historic buildings and monuments, many dating back to 16th century. Highlights include Gothic and Baroque churches and the famed St Rumbold's Tower. With Belgium’s foremost cathedral, a superb central square, and several intriguing museums, Mechelen is one of Flanders’ most underrated historic places. And, as the seat of Belgium's Catholic primate (the equivalent of an archbishop), it has many fine churches. Mechelen lies on the major urban and industrial axis Brussels–Antwerp, about 25 km (~18 mi.) from each city. Mechelen is also one of Flanders' prominent cities of historical art (along with Antwerp, Bruges, Brussels, Ghent, and Leuven). It was notably a center for artistic production during the Northern Renaissance, when painters, printmakers, illuminators and composers of polyphony were attracted by patrons such as Margaret of York, Margaret of Austria, and Hieronymus van Busleyden. (Most cities in Flanders have a nickname for their inhabitants. Since 1687, for their attempt to extinguish a fire high up in the Saint-Rumbold's Tower, where the gothic windows had shown the flaring of only the moon between clouds, locals have been called Maneblussers [moon extinguishers]).