Leuven is one of the well-known Flemish cultural cities in Belgium. The city is known to be mentioned for the first time in 891 in connection with the Battle of Leuven. Over the following centuries, the city developed into one of the most important trading cities in the Duchy of Brabrant, which was a state in the Holy Roman Empire.

There was also a large textile production in the 1400s and 1500s, and the 15th century became a golden age for the city with the foundation of the university in 1425 and the construction of large buildings such as Leuven’s town hall. The city continued as a center of knowledge, and Erasmus and Gemma Frisius worked here. Throughout the 1700s and 1800s, Leuven was rapidly developed, and the industry developed with Den Horn brewery and others.

Today, Leuven is one of Belgium’s must-see cities with a cozy city center where you can enjoy lovely walks. The best place to start is at the Grote Markt square, where Leuven’s beautiful town hall is located. The town hall was built in the years 1439-1469 in impressive Brabant Gothic. On the facade, you can see countless niches where statues of people important to the city were placed in the 19th century. The bottom level of figures are local historically important people, the second level are patron saints and symbolic characters, and the top level are counts and dukes from Brabant.

Next to the town hall is the Tafelrond building, which was built in neo-gothic style 1926-1937 as a bank, and here the figures on the facade represents people from the financial world. North of Tafelrond you can see the Fonske statue, which is one of the city’s best-known monuments.

On the north side of the Grote Markt stands Leuven’s mighty Sint-Pieterskerk, built in Brabant Gothic in the 15th century. It is a church worth seeing, where you can notice the facade to the west with unfinished towers. The church’s Romanesque towers burned down in 1458, and at the beginning of the 16th century plans emerged for a new facade with three towers, the middle one of which was to be 170 meters high and thus the world’s tallest.

However, the soil at the place and financing put an end to the project. Despite the unfinished status of the towers, however, they are among the bell towers in Belgium and France that have been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Inside Sint-Pieterskerk you can see a large church interior in typical Gothic decor.

South of the city center you can take a nice walk in Sint-Donatus Park, where there are remains of Leuven’s old city walls from the 12th century. Close to the park is Sint-Michielskerk, which was built as a Jesuit church in Baroque style in the years 1650-1671. The architect Willem Hesius was architecturally inspired by the Church of the Gesù in Rome. You should also go to the Groot Begijnhof Leuven, a beautifully preserved example of a beguinage with houses, a church and green areas.

The Groot Begijnhof was founded in the 13th century and is today included in UNESCO’s World Heritage List. Not far from the here, you can explore Kasteel van Arenberg, a castle that was built 1455-1515; since then, however, renovations have been carried out. Today the castle is used as a university building, and back in the center of Leuven you can see the almost castle-like university library on Ladeuzeplein, Leuven’s largest square.