Liège

Liège is Wallonia's beating, arguing heart. For eight hundred years it was a sovereign prince-bishopric — neither France nor Empire, fiercely itself — and the perron column on the market square still stands for liberties the citizens defended with legendary stubbornness. The city gave French music two founders: André Grétry, whose opéras-comiques charmed pre-revolutionary Paris (his heart, by his wish, returned home in a monument), and César Franck, born here in 1822, the organist-father of the French symphonic school. Georges Simenon added literature's contribution — Maigret's creator grew up in the Outremeuse quarter, which celebrates its folklore with puppet saints and an August festival of cheerful excess.

The city climbs from the Meuse in stairways — the Montagne de Bueren's 374 steps are the emblem — and arrives by Calatrava: the Guillemins station's white wave is Belgium's boldest modern building. Sundays belong to La Batte, the kilometre-long riverside market. The musical establishment is the strongest in French-speaking Belgium: the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in its restored Théâtre Royal, and the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, Wallonia's flagship symphony, in the Salle Philharmonique — a concert life the record confirms alongside the churches and cultural centres of the source's description. Waffles sugar-pearled, boulets sauce lapin, opinions freely given: Liège is Latin Belgium at full temperature.