Leuven

Leuven has been a university city since 1425 and it still runs on that: a student population that fills the squares in term time and empties the city in summer. Its landmark is the fifteenth-century town hall, a Gothic building so densely covered in pinnacles, niches and statues that it looks more like a reliquary than an office, with over two hundred figures on the facade. Opposite stands St Peter's church, whose interior holds two paintings by Dieric Bouts. The Oude Markt is a square lined end to end with bars, promoted locally as the longest bar in the world, on the basis that the terraces run continuously. The Groot Begijnhof, a walled complex of brick houses and lanes once home to a lay religious community, is now student housing and UNESCO-listed.

History

Leuven, as Loven, is first named in 891, when the Frankish king Arnulf of Carinthia defeated a Viking army here, and beside the Dyle and near the stronghold of the dukes of Brabant it became the duchy's leading trading town between the 11th and 14th centuries, so famed for cloth that plain linen was called lewyn. A new golden age began with the founding of the university in 1425, the oldest in the Low Countries, when the town hall and St. Peter's Church were built and Dirk Bouts painted here; Erasmus worked in Leuven, Hieronymus van Busleyden founded the Collegium Trilingue in 1517, Thomas More's Utopia was printed here in 1516, and in 1708 Sebastien Artois became master brewer at the Den Horn brewery, which took his name in 1717 (Wikipedia, Leuven).

What's there

• The town hall - the extraordinarily ornate Gothic facade with hundreds of statues.
• Groot Begijnhof - a walled brick village of lanes and courtyards, now university housing.
• St Peter's Church - the Bouts altarpieces and the treasury.
• Oude Markt - the square of continuous bar terraces, at its liveliest in term time.

When to go

April to October for terrace weather. The city is transformed by term dates: lively from October to June, noticeably quiet in July and August when students leave. It works well as a day trip from Brussels or as a base near the airport.

What to expect

In summer the student energy that makes Leuven distinctive is largely absent. The Oude Markt is a drinking square and gets loud late; hotels around it are not for light sleepers. The town hall interior is visitable only on guided tours at set times, so the facade is what most visitors actually see.

Nearby

Brussels is twenty minutes by train; Mechelen lies between the two.

Key facts