Netherlands Travel Guide

Although they're small, each of these three countries contains a diversity of culture, language, and tradition that defies easy definition. Belgium is fractured along the age-old European great divide between the Germanic north and the Latin south. This division is expressed in the constant regional bickering between Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia that threatens to split the country entirely.

Holland (the Netherlands) has its great divide, too, along the "three great rivers" -- the Maas, the Waal, and the Rhine. The northerners are straitlaced and Calvinist and (to hear the southerners say it) only know what to do with a glass of beer because they've been shown by the exuberant, Catholic southerners. Then there's the matter of nations within the nation. Friesland, Zeeland, and Limburg have their notions of separateness and their own languages to back them up.

As for Luxembourg, you'd think a country so small that -- even on a big map -- its name can't fit within its borders would be simpler. Not a bit. Luxembourgers are such a mixed bag that they're still trying to sort out the mess left behind when the Germanic tribes overran the Roman Empire's Rhine defenses in A.D. 406.

Diversity is the greatest asset of the Benelux countries. The visitor from afar may be more impressed by their shared characteristics, which include a determined grasp on the good life, than by the differences that separate them.