Top-rated Tourist Attractions in Belgium

Belgium may be small but it’s full of sights. This small nation has been right at the forefront of Europe’s history.

La Grand Place, Brussels

La Grand Place is surrounded by finely preserved grand buildings. The square is busy with tourists and locals at all times of year, but especially in August, when the center is filled with a beautiful flower carpet. You’ll get the best full view of the beautiful designs from the balcony of the town hall.

The Battlefields of Flanders

For many visitors, Belgium’s role in the Battlefields of Flanders is the main reason for a journey here. This area is also scattered with vast cemeteries for thousands of soldiers who died here. The Tyne Cot Cemetery (British) and Langemark’s German War Cemetery are both reminders of the fighting that took place here during the Great War.

Meuse Valley

The Meuse Valley, south of Brussels, is one of the best places to get a feel for Belgium’s rural center. The Meuse River offers Belgium’s most scenic river trip opportunities. Head to either the towns of Namur or Dinant to plan your river trip. Both of these small centers act as gateways to this region. The Meuse Valley is also ho me to a host of hiking and cycling trails for travelers who want to add some activities into their holidays.

Ghent’s Canals

For easy sightseeing while in Ghent, simply take to the water. Several companies offer sightseeing trips upon Ghent’s waterways. Most canal cruise options are either 40 minutes or one hour. Departures are regular from around March through November, with fewer departures during winter. A couple of companies offer boat rental, so you can explore the canals at your own speed.

It was a stormy March morning in 2019 off Australia’s Western Coast, when whale researcher John Totterdell and his students caught sight of the chase in the water. The scene was a mess. The first thing they spotted was about twenty black and white shapes in the water—a group of killer whales surrounding something. From the boat, all Totterdell could make out was a much larger gray blue animal at the center.

Within seconds they realized a pack of killer whales were attacking a blue whale. The whale was about 70 feet long and it was fighting back. But the killer whales, which were only about a third as big, were making coordinated(联合的) attacks and working together to kill their target. It went on for hours and eventually, the blue whale got weaker.

Sensing their opportunity, two killer whales leapt on top of the blue whale, forcing it under the water until it eventually drowned. While killer whales were known to attack blue whales, the team of researchers were the first to ever document a successful attack. They published their findings in the journal Marine Mammal Science. Their work definitely shows that killer whales, which actually belong to the dolphin family, are the top hunter in the ocean. They are so fierce(凶猛的) that even great white sharks seem to be scared of them.

According to researchers who had marked white sharks with a tracking device off the coast of California, just the presence of a group of killer whales drove away the sharks for months. Also in their favor is the close nature of killer whales' families. The group is led by a matriarch(女家长) and once they have a skill, they pass it along from one generation to the next within their family group. So, with each successful strike against a blue whale, they are relearning and expanding their culture.

Forests might be the best tool humans have to fight climate change. Plants naturally absorb CO₂ and release oxygen as part of photosynthesis (光合作用), but trees can process a lot more because of the size of their trunks, green leafy crown, and root structures. This filtering (过滤) and storage capacity is part of the United Nations’ Great Green Wall plan to plant an 8,000 km (5,000 mile) long tree belt across the African continent.

More recent projects like Trillion Trees, the World Economic Forum’s 1T, and the UN’s follow-up Great Green Wall for Cities highlight forest regeneration as the most effective nature-based solution for CO₂. For example, the Great Green Wall for Cities project would create urban green areas. Once completed, the wall will capture an estimated 0.5~5 billion tons of CO₂ every year. And, if well managed, its urban forests could also reduce air temperature, lower flood risk, and improve air quality.

City trees are actually sucking more CO₂ out of the atmosphere than that was thought. Now Boston University studies show that forest edges grow almost twice as quickly and store carbon faster than trees deep inside the forest. Projects influenced by botanist Akira Miyawaki are now creating tiny community forests across the planet. Miyawaki's micro-forests are much denser (稠密) than traditional woods. They store 30 times more CO₂ than common forests and offer 30 times better noise and dust reduction, say his followers.

Dave Nowak is a researcher at the US Forest Service who has studied using trees to reduce carbon for years. Trees not only cool their surroundings, they also recycle tiny pollutants. But figuring out which exact species work best to improve air quality depends on many factors including soil, local climate, and site conditions, says Nowak. Urban planners can start by using the US Forest Service iTree Tools to choose the best trees for each locality. Another tool, American Forests’ Tree Equity Score Analyzer, helps planners to target urban forests in disadvantaged areas.

When we talk about robots, we may immediately think of sci-fi-inspired humanoid machines. While they primarily remain mythical (神话的), there are numerous more types of robots in use today. Robots differ from other machines in how they interact with the world. They have the ability to change their surroundings and respond to the world around them based on their actions. Yet, as we’ve seen, they’re not yet good for all areas of life. Will this, however, change in the future?

By the mid-2030s, business network PwC expects that robots will have automated up to 30% of occupations. According to some projections, the global stock of robots might reach 20 million by 2030, with automated labor displacing (替换) up to 51 million people in the next ten years. While robots are unlikely to take over the world, we may expect to see more of them in our everyday lives.

Robots are transforming the world by assisting people in performing tasks more efficiently and in ways that were previously impossible. Robots help with disaster response, improve physical abilities, serve in sectors that require human connection, and permit exploration beyond Earth’s borders. Robots are having a generally positive impact on the globe. They may be replacing some human employment, but they also improve efficiency, which improves economic activity, which in turn creates more opportunities for humans to develop new ways to earn money.

Machines and robots with the ability to learn could have an even wider range of behooves. Robots that can adapt to their surroundings, learn new procedures, and change their behavior in the future will be better suitable for more complicated activities. Robots have the potential to improve our lives in the long run. They may be able to improve healthcare and make transportation more efficient, in addition to shouldering the strain of physically demanding or repetitive work.