The Flemmish side has pretty towns because they take great care of them, so it must help. We do have a few nice spots in Wallonia too, though.Hah, I lived in Antwerp for almost 2 years, feels like forever ago now. My partner back then showed me around Brussels one day and had some headbutting with a waiter in a cafe that insisted on speaking French when she was speaking Dutch, and there was this akward back and forth in which we finally got our drinks with nobody speaking a single word in the same language. I will always remember that event as an example of how dumb human beings can get.
All in all, I enjoyed Antwerp quite a bit, a lovely place. Also learned a lot about the culture and learned the Dutch language so, despite the eventual romantic experence failure, I can tell Begium is a place I remember with certain fondness - at least the Flemmish side.
But yeah, as in most countries that have been glued together from different parts, there are cohesion problems. We French used to be too lazy to learn and maintain a good Dutch fluency, so there's an long-lived resentment from their part because of that, and some of them are tired of doing the effort of speaking French. The tendency is slowly reversing, it seems.
It's a silly place.
