Belgium has one of the oldest populations in Europe, so lunch with hypochondriac or gastronome grandparents represents a weekend fixture. A warm Sunday sees a bracing family outing to the woods or dunes, with bourgeois Belgians accompanied by preening poodles or bergers belges, native alsatians. Yet resolutely bourgeois Belgium is far from predictable, especially in its attitudes to sex and death. Breughel and the Flemish masters delighted in depicting gory massacres, while modern Belgians cultivate a salacious sexual streak, presented pragmatically rather than poetically. The Surrealists were obsessed by bizarre portrayals of nudes entwined with apples or trains, while detective novelist Georges Simenon boasted that he had slept with 10,000 women.
Open prostitution is also common, and Antwerp's red-light district is as lively as Amsterdam's.
As natural bons vivants, Belgians emanate Burgundian warmth rather than French chic. Belgian joie de vivre always comes in large portions, from vibrant food markets to voluptuous Rubens nudes and sheer generosity of spirit. Even the heated caf terraces lend the wintry cities a seductive Latin air, a world away from cold northern Europe. Winter means good company and hot chocolate in front of a crackling fire in a city inn. In such classic Brussels bars as Le Cirio, permed and proper matrons, accompanied by poodles or pekes, while away the day contemplating life through a succession of Chimay Bleues.