Mechelen's Grand Beguinage is a small town inside a town, and the first thing that hits you on walking through its gate is the silence. Behind the walls are cobbled lanes lined with small gabled houses, a quiet church, a green square and a canal arm of the Dijle river. For centuries this was the home of the beguines, women who lived a religious life without taking formal vows, supporting themselves by weaving, lace-making, nursing and teaching. The movement began in the Low Countries in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and at its height there were hundreds of beguinages. Mechelen's was one of the largest, and most of what stands today dates from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was listed by UNESCO in 1998 as part of the group of Flemish beguinages.
The city around it is Mechelen, about halfway between Brussels and Antwerp, and in the early sixteenth century it was the capital of the Habsburg Netherlands, ruled by Margaret of Austria, who was a patron of the arts. Her court made the city rich, and you can still see the legacy in the old palaces and the great tower of St Rumbold's cathedral, a huge unfinished spire that dominates the skyline. Today it is a small lively city of some seventy-seven thousand people, known for its tapestry, its carillon school and its beer, the Gouden Carolus, brewed by a local brewery.
Riding here is Flemish flat. The roads are well surfaced, though cobbles in the old town can be slippery in the wet, and traffic around the ring road is busy at rush hour. Belgium has plenty of speed cameras. Fuel is simple to find, and Brussels and Antwerp, both half an hour away, can supply anything else.
Try the local delicacies: Mechelse koekoek, a chicken breed served in cream sauce, and the white asparagus of the region in spring, known as Mechelse asperges. Chocolate shops are everywhere in Belgium, and a stop at one is good manners.
The best months are May and June, when the beguinage gardens bloom, and September, when the light is mellow. Winters are grey but quiet, and you can often have the lanes to yourself.