Qualla: Aalst, Belgium

Aalst, Belgium: Introduction

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jaronax, CC BY-SA 3.0. Locals call it Oilsjt, not Aalst, and locals will tell you the difference matters. The town sits on the Dender River about thirty kilometers northwest of Brussels, close enough to feel the capital's pull and far enough to keep its own accent, its own bread, and a folkloric feud with Dendermonde that has run, on and off, since the Middle Ages. Ninety thousand people live here. Most of them, if you ask, would rather talk about the carnival than the politics, and that itself is a long story.

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Image: Jaronax | CC BY-SA 3.0

Aalst, Belgium: A Printer Before Almost Anyone

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Willemdd at Dutch Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1473, a citizen of Aalst named Dirk Martens set up a printing shop. This was twenty years after Gutenberg, a generation before most of Europe had reckoned with movable type. Martens printed Latin scholars, classical texts, and at least one book by Christopher Columbus, the kin...

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Image: Willemdd at Dutch Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Aalst, Belgium: The Weavers' Town

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zairon, CC BY-SA 4.0. For centuries, Aalst was a weavers' town. The road from Bruges to Cologne crossed the Dender here, and the river itself moved cloth and grain and grievance through Flanders into the Holy Roman Empire and back. The weavers' guild ran much of the prosperity. The town was rich, then...

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Image: Zairon | CC BY-SA 4.0

Aalst, Belgium: Carnival, and the UNESCO Question

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wikisid, CC BY 3.0. Aalst Carnival is the centerpiece of the local year. For three days before Lent the town becomes a riot of color, satire, and giants - the floats lampoon politicians, religion, royalty, the press, anything and anyone in the news. In 2010, UNESCO added the carnival to the Represen...

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Image: Wikisid | CC BY 3.0

Aalst, Belgium: Aalst on Film

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jaronax, CC BY 4.0. Aalst has been the set for more screen work than a town this size usually sees. Stijn Coninx's 1992 film Daens, about the Catholic priest and social reformer Adolf Daens, was set here and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Coninx returned in 2018 with Niet...

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Image: Jaronax | CC BY 4.0

Aalst, Belgium: What You See From Above

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jaronax, CC BY-SA 4.0. From cruising altitude, Aalst reads as a compact knot of streets clustered against the Dender, with the belfry catching light when the sun is low. The Molenbeek-Ter Erpenbeek runs in from the southwest. Brussels glows on the horizon to the east-southeast; Ghent to the northwest. ...

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Image: Jaronax | CC BY-SA 4.0