Experience the best of Zaventem

Zaventem lies in the province of Flemish Brabant, just beyond the north-eastern boundary of Brussels. Brussels Airport, the country's main international airport, sits within the municipality, and around it have grown business parks, hotels and freight yards. The older village centre, with its parish church and quiet residential lanes, stands a little apart from the runways, and the villages of Sterrebeek and Sint-Stevens-Woluwe belong to the same municipality.

The Grand-Place and the museums of Brussels are a short ride west, and so are the green parks on the city's eastern side. Tervuren, to the south-east, has a large park and the Royal Museum for Central Africa, and beyond it the Sonian Forest, a vast beech woodland, spreads along the southern edge of the capital. Leuven, with its Gothic town hall and old university, and Mechelen, with its cathedral tower and carillon school, lie within about twenty kilometres.

Belgian staples are never far away: frites in paper cones, waffles, mussels in white wine and a long list of beers served in their own glasses. Chicory, whose pale shoots are called witloof, is a Brabant crop, and Brussels sprouts take their name from the capital next door. The weather is cool and often grey, with the best light in late spring and early autumn.