Culture.


Martin Westlake has followed parallel careers as a civil servant and as an academic and has lived, studied, and worked in the UK, Italy, France, and Belgium. Since taking early retirement as a civil servant, he has been pursuing a new parallel career as an author of creative fiction. Westlake, who has British and Belgian nationality, is much interested in local history. He is currently seeking an agent for his first full-length creative history novel, Where Lies the Land, which starts in the Belgian Ardennes in August 1914 and ends in the Alberta Plains (Canada) in November 1918.

16 April 2021

The WWII sacrifices behind a grey plaque on a striking Schaerbeek building

On the corner of Avenue Eugène Plasky and rue du Saphir in Schaerbeek stands a distinctive house, built in 1930. It was designed by Belgian architect […]
16 April 2021

Netflix pledges net zero emissions by end of 2022

Last month streaming giant Netflix announced in its “Environmental Social Governance” (ESG) Report 2020 that it pledges to wipe out its carbon footprint in under two […]
14 April 2021

NexTus: a new way to attend a classical music concert in Covid times

How can we participate in a classical music concert in a period where concert halls, opera houses and all public places are not available because of […]
14 April 2021

5 books to read before you visit Portugal

Portugal is a country of unparalleled beauty. Besides this, according InterNations it ranks in first position for quality-of-life countries in Europe as well as third in […]
13 April 2021

Reconstruction of Notre Dame could take up to 20 years

After the gigantic fire that ravaged two years ago the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris and moved the whole world, the reconstruction work might be […]
12 April 2021

Highest suspension bridge in Canada to open in May

The highest suspension bridge in Canada will open to visitors in May of this year. The new Golden Skybridge consists of two suspension bridges that will […]
9 April 2021

New Excelsior Pass meant to facilitate entry to concerts and events in New York State

The government of New York State has launched a new digital vaccine pass to try to restart activities in large venues such as concerts, sport games, […]
9 April 2021

Ian Fleming. The man behind James Bond

Write what you know, they say, but it’s a tall order for thriller writers. There’s a big difference between the sedentary desk life of an author […]
8 April 2021

The oldest map of Europe has been identified in Brittany

The oldest geographical representation of a territory in Europe has just been identified in France. Engraved on a stone slab, this map is dated to the […]
8 April 2021

10 Most beautiful metro stations in the world

Most cities in the world have their own public transport network, from buses to trains, trams to the underground. Also known as MRT, subway, tube and […]
7 April 2021

Meet the new Captain America

The chosen one to take over, after Steve Rogers, the shield and mask of Captain America in the new Marvel universe series, “The Falcon and the […]
6 April 2021

Louvre puts its entire collection online

The Louvre has put its entire art collection, which includes more than 480,000 works of art, available online for anyone to look through at any time […]
2 April 2021

Klankenbos, a different kind of forest

When talking about life, many people will agree that nature is the greatest artist of all with all the lifeforms, shapes, sounds and scents it created. […]
2 April 2021

The Belgian bunkers in Bertem’s fields and the forgotten battle of May 1940

The rolling land around Leuven is peppered with Second World War bunkers. Unlike the monsters of the Atlantic Wall, designed to deter as well as to […]
1 April 2021

Brussels introduces its first architecture prize

The Brussels Architecture Prize is an initiative of the Brussels-Capital Region that is implemented by Urban in collaboration with A+ Architecture in Belgium. Every two years, […]
1 April 2021

World-renowned architecture firm Snøhetta to design new Kon-Tiki museum in Oslo

Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta has revealed plans to renew the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo. The new museum will be in line with Thor Heyerdahl’s adventurous spirit […]