Hasselt

Limburg's principal town has busy shopping streets, innovative museums, and a cathedral with the de rigueur carillon. In mid-October, it hosts an annual weekend festival for its signature drink, jenever. In the late 1990s, the ring road around the old town center, which followed the line of the medieval city walls, was revamped; now called the "Groen Boulevard" (Green Boulevard), it's lined with trees and has a wide pedestrian walkway. This, plus the free city bus service and a handful of pedestrian-only blocks, makes Hasselt particularly easy to navigate.