Red Cathedral

If you have any knowledge of European languages you'll recognize " Ciao " as an Italian word and if you don't then you know it now. The Belgian province of Limburg has a huge Italian community. Around 1910 almost 4500 Italians lived and worked in Belgium. A number that rose to 33000 around 1931, before the second world war. After that war Belgium had a huge problem finding miners so in 1946 a treaty was signed between Italy and Belgium to exchange Italian miners for Belgian coal. Between 1948 and 1955 over a 100.000 workers and their families moved from the warm Mediterranean to the much colder Belgium. It must be said they often had less than desirable living and working conditions. Many even had to stay in the old camps for war prisoners that were dire reminders of WWII. One of the moments in recent time Belgium should be ashamed of. . This mass exodus towards Belgium ended in 1956 after a disaster happened in the Marcinelle coal mine, killing 262 miners,

Have you ever been to a carnaval parade?  There are several genres. You've got the stylish & elegant Venetian style parades and there are those where the people take back the right to satire everything they see in the world around them. The best known & biggest ( 105k spectators on Sunday ) carnaval parade in my country is the carnaval in Aalst which happened at the same moment as the one in Tongeren.  But I took my electric step and vroomed to the eldest city in Belgium: Atuatuca Tungrorum ( founded 7 BC ) and I enjoyed myself. . Just like many other regions, Limburg has a rich carnaval history and you could really see the people yearn for this parade. The 2019 canaraval got cancelled last minute due to a storm. 2020-21 Had a pandemic. Apparently there was a tiny last-minute carnaval parade in 2022.. yet I seem to have missed it.. and not just me. Hence the recently invented Dutch word knaldrang was almost tangible in the air: people wanted to celebrate, show