Over the last two years, we’ve had four different trips to Belgium and France, which has given us plenty of time to explore the various Belfries of Belgium and France UNESCO site.  The 56 buildings under the UNESCO designation are spread over hundreds of kilometers, so it takes bit of travel to see them all (or even most of them).

It wasn’t really our intention to explore the belfries, but we kind of stumbled into it.  On our first trip to Flanders, I remember being stunned by the belfry in Bruges.  But pondering the building while having lunch, I remember thinking, but it’s not part of a church.  And so began our indoctrination to the Belfries of Belgium and France.

Unlike elsewhere in Europe, the towers are secular in both construction and use.  They are watchtowers and clock towers.  Elsewhere in Europe, the church occupies the most prominent space in town, but in Flanders and Wallonia (and nearby in France), it is the government that gets the coveted role.

Some of our favorite belfries were:  Ghent, Antwerp, and Leuven.  Someday, we’ll manage to make it all 56 on the list.