Discover Benelux | Editor’s Note
Dear Reader,
Discover Benelux Issue 75, March 2020
Executive Editor Thomas Winther
Eddi Fiegel Eline Joling Ingrid Opstad Kate Harvey Lauren Walker Martin Pilkington Matt Antoniak Maya Witters Michiel Stol Myriam Gwynned Paola Westbeek Shanna McGoldrick Stephanie Uwalaka Stuart Forster
Creative Director Mads E. Petersen
Cover Photo © Louis de Caunes, OlympiaProd
Editor Anna Villeleger
Sales & Key Account Managers Mette Tonnessen Katia Sfihi Petra Foster Jan-Hein Mensink
Published 03.2020 ISSN 2054-7218 Published by Scan Client Publishing Print Uniprint
Copy-editor Karl Batterbee Graphic Designer Audrey Beullier Feature Writer Arne Adriaenssens Contributors Bas van Duren Cherine Koubat Colette Davidson
Publisher: Scan Group 15B Bell Yard Mews Bermondsey Street London SE1 3TY United Kingdom
Spring Equinox is also just around the corner, bringing longer and – hopefully – warmer days. In honour of the new season, this month we head to Luxembourg, where the famous Buergbrennen festival (Bonfire Day), sees various towns across the country set fire to a large wooden cross in order to ‘burn the winter’. Spring is a wonderful time to visit the Grand Duchy, and after reading our special guide starting on page 10, you will surely be inspired to take a trip. Fresh from his enormous success with the comedy series Roi de la vanne on French TV channel Canal+, this month’s cover star is Belgian comic Guillermo Guiz, who started this year with a sellout run of his new stand-up show Au Suivant!. I had the pleasure of speaking to Brussels-born Guiz, who still prefers to live in his native city, despite his huge success in neighbouring France. In our interview, he reminisces about growing up in the Belgian capital and explains how he came up with the pseudonym Guillermo (his real name is Guy Verstraeten). Find out more on page 44. Elsewhere in the magazine you can enjoy a Rotterdam city special, an education guide, and a countdown of some of the tastiest Dutch snack foods. I think my personal favourite has to be the stroopwafel, a type of gooey caramel wafer which is said to have originated in Gouda at the beginning of the 19th century. I’m not alone, either, as today, approximately 300 million stroopwafels are consumed annually in the Netherlands. Enjoy the magazine.
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4 | Issue 75 | March 2020
Welcome to the March issue. By now, the signs of spring are slowly being ushered in, even in the chilliest parts of the Benelux. You will have probably already spied those first crocuses, a sign that tulip season, when the Netherlands becomes transformed into a sea of flowers, is only a few more weeks away.
Anna Villeleger, Editor