Wallonie, Belgium’s French-speaking south, occupies about 55 percent of the country’s land area yet is home to only around 3.7 million people—less than a third of the national population. Consisting of five provinces, it has been long shaped by coal mining and heavy industry and has faced decades of economic difficulty, and its cities lack the international polish and visibility of Flemish destinations like Antwerp, Brugge (Bruges), Ghent, and Leuven. But that relative obscurity is p
