Original subtitles

This is Belgium

as you've never seen it before.

From above, we'll reveal a coastal nation

that draws on ancient traditions and innovative spirit

to master its landscape

and shape its forward thinking future.

In this series, we'll take an aerial tour across Europe.

Filmed over the course of a single year.

And through the changing seasons

we'll uncover the culture,

history

and engineering,

that built the great European nations we see today.

Belgium is a coastal nation

that sits on the corner of northwestern Europe.

It's bordered by four countries

including France to the south and Germany to the east.

It's home to 11.5 million people and they're all packed into an area

18 times smaller than its neighbor, France.

Belgium is one of Europe's smallest countries,

yet, it's a nation of vivid contrasts.

From the beaches and plains of the north,

to the rugged hills and thick forests of the south.

The castles of the middle ages serve as a reminder

of the constant tussle between empires for its territory,

and even today it's home to the three official languages

of Flemish, French and German.

As the colder months fade,

the warmer weather beckons the year's first shoots.

And the snows covering Brussels melt away,

heralding the arrival of spring.

Belgium gained independence from the Netherlands in 1830

and established a monarchy which resides in the capital, Brussels.

It's the administrative, financial and commercial heart of the nation,

and its center is the home of the strikingly

modern European Union parliament.

Yet there's another even more unusual building

that lies on the outskirts of this historic city.

Brussels sits in the middle of the country

on the banks of the Senne.

It's a sea of concrete and slate,

but a closer look reveals a strange structure

that glints brightly in the spring time light.

This is the astonishing Atomium.

It was built as the emblem

for the 1958 Brussels World Fair.

Today, it's a museum with a viewing lounge.

But it's more famous as a world renowned symbol of Brussels.

And with the winter behind it, it's the perfect time

to give these famous spheres a spring clean.

This vertiginous task rests on the shoulders

of Tommy Oosterbosch and his team.

They travel around the country cleaning structures that are difficult to reach.

I've been doing this job for the Atomium for ten years.

It's a building we are attached to. It's the symbol of Belgium,

like The Torre Eiffel in Paris, just a bit smaller.

Today, Tommy's team is cleaning just one of Atomium's nine spheres.

A task so tricky will take them all day to complete it.

From their lofty vantage point, Tommy and the team

have incredible views across the whole city.

They carefully lower themselves over the edge of the top sphere

and start cleaning the public viewing lounge.

The Atomium resembles an iron crystal

magnified 165 billion times.

The nine perfect spheres are 18 meters in diameter.

They're held upright by 20 tubes, three meters wide.

Escalators run inside the tubes enabling access between the spheres.

Despite its groundbreaking design,

the Atomium was originally conceived

to be a temporary construction.

Year after year,

its destruction was postponed, until, finally, the city's authorities

decided to preserve it as part of the nation's heritage.

After five hours, and with the early spring

darkness fast approaching, the team cleans the last window

on the top sphere.

It will take them a further two weeks to finish the rest of the structure,

so tourists in their thousands can continue to enjoy the stunning vistas

of one of Europe's oldest capitals.

The biggest satisfaction is the final result,

and people mentioned that the Atomium shines more than it did a month before.

In spring, visitors to Belgium's coastline

queue up to take the scenic Kusttram, the longest tram in the world.

It carries passengers along the entire coast,

passing towns such as Ostend, where a marathon is held every year,

and Knokke-Heist, where thousands of Belgians gather

for the Zoute Grand Prix, a festival that involves a classic car race.

Spring heralds another coastal activity

that is almost unheard of anywhere else in the world.

The country's coastline runs for 65 kilometers

from France in the south west to the Netherlands in the north east.

Flying down through the clouds

reveals wide sandy beaches that stretch for miles,

often pushing 300 meters inland.

One beach in the far northwestern corner hides an extraordinary aerial secret.

This is Sint Andre Beach in Oostduinkerke.

It's the home of an astonishing

500 year old tradition best observed from the skies.

For six months of the year,

fishermen known as paardenvissers ride huge horses into the freezing waters.

Their aim is to catch as many grey shrimp as their nets will allow.

Today this practice is kept alive by only 16 fishermen.

Stefaan Hancke has been a paardenvisser for over 20 years.

I became a horseback fishermen because of my love for the draft horse.

My grandparents on both sides have draft horses.

Stefaan uses a huge Belgian draft horse

called Dina for the job.

Belgian drafts stand almost two meters tall

and are capable of pulling more than a 1,000 kilograms.

They can weigh up to a ton.

The fishing takes place an hour either side of low tide.

Seen from above, the water looks calm.

But thousands of grey shrimp cluster beneath the surface.

As sand meets water,

Stefaan ties a nine meter long funnel shaped net to Dina's back.

As they push through the water, a metal chain drags over the seabed

creating shock waves which kick up the shrimp.

The net fans out to catch them.

This age old artisanal method is more sustainable than industrial fishing

since the use of lighter equipment limits the damage to the seabed.

But there's no way of knowing just yet

if the nets are filling up with shrimp.

20 minutes later horseback fishermen, Stefaan,

carefully sieves his haul of shrimp

and returns any hitch hiking crabs to the sea.

It's been a successful day.

His catch weighs 13 kilograms.

Back home, the shrimp are prepped,

boiled and quickly dried for market.

For Stefaan, it's also time to take a breather

and snack on the fruits of his labor.

I'm always happy catching shrimp.

It's the satisfaction of being outside with the animal.

The whole package. I'd rather have painful hands from working

than pain in my head from thinking.

As the cold spring mornings make way for warmer temperatures,

couples and families take advantage

of the sandy shorelines soaking in the sun.

And shrimp fishermen are joined by locals and tourists alike

on Belgium's beaches,

as summer arrives.

Belgium is one of the most densely populated countries in Europe.

98 percent of Belgians live in urban areas like Brussels and Antwerp.

Farmland is in short supply,

yet this small nation is the world's leading exporter of begonias

and the largest grower of conference pears.

And what's grown here makes up a quarter of the country's GDP.

There's one crop that symbolizes the nation more than any other.

In Belgium's northwest,

the plains of West Flanders stretch out for miles.

Viewed from above,

they form a patchwork of low lying fields of wheat and sugar beet.

Yet a closer look

reveals darker patches and is a giant crop like no other.

The municipality of Poperinge is hop country.

Hops are a key ingredient in Belgium's historically famous beer industry.

But growing them provides an aerial challenge of epic proportions.

Flying above the rows reveals long stems or vines up to seven meters high.

Almost as tall as a two story house.

And like Jack's magic beanstalk,

they grow at an astonishing rate. More than ten centimeters a day.

In late summer,

it rests on the shoulders of Benedikte Coutigny

to organize the harvest of this most vertiginous of crops.

The family of my husband has already cultivating hops

here on this farm since 1893.

When it's September, it's very busy period.

You can smell all the flavors and all the aromas.

It's an exciting time.

Hops have been used to give beer a bitter flavor for 1,200 years.

When the soft cones are filled with aromatic oils, they are ready for harvest.

The family use special harvesting machines that cut the binds at the bottom,

and carefully unwind the plants from their towering supports.

At the back of the harvester, a track pulls the whole vine in.

A successful hop harvest has been the livelihood

of the locals in Poperinge for more than 500 years.

New shoots appear in spring

and the family wind them around a hot training wire by hand

to allow them to grow upwards.

The hops bloom in early July

and are monitored constantly until they are ripe.

Over eight long hours, Benedikte and her team strip the vines

and their cones off the metal supports.

Belgium's hops are prized and reserved for only the finest of beers.

It's important to have a good harvest at the end of the season.

We deliver different flavors, different varieties

to several breweries here in Belgium.

The breweries are counting on us.

By the end of the day,

the team have collected 3,000 hops and cleared half a hectare.

But there's still work to be done.

Benedikte's team unloads the hops into a special machine

that strips the vine and spits it out.

The hot cones drop on to a conveyor belt to be dried and packaged.

Benedikte's hops make their way to breweries all over Belgium

where they are turned into world renowned beer.

It's a hobby, of course, and my life.

It's my work.

But working in plantations, it's fantastic.

In the early 19th century, the newly independent Belgian nation

was the first in continental Europe to embrace the industrial revolution.

For the young country's economy to thrive,

it needed to be linked on all four corners by an extensive network of waterways.

Many of these canals are still in use today.

Yet for the boats passing through, it's not always plain sailing.

A 1,600 kilometer network of 52 canals and rivers

crisscross two thirds of the nation.

With miles of flatland, Flanders provides the perfect way

to trade goods around the country.

But the hills of Wallonia pose a unique challenge for ships passing through.

In the middle of these hills

is a mysterious structure that looks like something out of a science fiction film.

This is the incredible 100 meter tall Strepy-Thieu boat lift.

It's the tallest boat lift in Europe.

Marc Michaux has spent 15 years ensuring smooth sailing

for every boat that passes through.

The boat lift is a work of art that allows very large,

very big boat to cross a significant difference in levels.

The lift opened in 2002 and around 6,000 boats a year use it.

It consists of two huge docking bays rigged to a set of weights.

Each bay is 112 meters long and filled with water.

Vessels sail into the base that then rise or fall 73 meters.

The machine is capable of lifting boats up to 88 meters in length.

Each bay is balanced by 112 steel cables,

and 32 control cables move each lift.

Huge counterweights weighing 1,000 tons each

are moved by four 730 horse power electric engines.

It's a big operation that takes 12 full time lock keepers

to keep it running for 15 hours a day, six days a week.

The 85 meter long Infinity 3

slowly approaches the lift carrying its load of scrap metal.

It weighs more than 1,300 tons.

The lockkeeper opens a set of three gates at the top.

Each gate functions as a water lock

to prevent liquid from seeping out of the tank.

The barge enters the tank and the gates close.

It takes six minutes for the boat to reach the lower canal.

The lock keepers opened the bottom gates

to allow the massive barge to continue its journey.

As it passes through,

it's a job well done.

It is the largest elevator in Europe.

I'm always very proud to show what we've been able to do here in this region.

As summer comes to an end,

the forests in Belgium's south take on a bronze sheen,

and castles all over the nation stand in relief against the auburn trees.

Autumn comes to Belgium.

The mild autumnal climate

is perfect for one of Belgium's most popular activities,

cycling.

In the past decade 43 percent of workers

have chosen to cycle to work

and green initiatives have paid 400,000 workers to ditch their cars for bikes.

Today, miles of dedicated cycle routes mark the landscape,

such as the stunning cycling through water project in Limburg.

In Flanders, amateurs gather every year for a cycle event

that takes in some of the most remarkable routes in the region.

And there's one spectacle here in the autumn,

that has to be seen to be believed.

The city of Ghent is the third largest city in the nation.

It holds a strategic position along the Leese and Schelde rivers.

Pushing through the clouds

its ports suddenly appears grasping the northern suburbs

like a claw connecting the city to the country's web of canals.

And to the south,

the densely packed historic center is home to a unique aerial site.

It's right here that artists from all over Europe

gather to dress the historic streets with stunning displays of colored lights.

The Ghent Light Festival.

It's one of the largest light festivals in Europe

and only takes place once every three years.

In a few days, 36 light art installations

will line a 7.4 kilometer route that takes in some

of the most iconic sights of the city.

From the 700 year old Saint Nicholas Church,

to the picturesque quay of Korenlei.

Artists are racing against time

to set up astonishing displays that will reveal the hidden beauty

of medieval Europe's second biggest city.

Fernando is part of Luminaria de Canya,

an Italian family business.

This year,

Fernando's display is a cathedral shaped frame

adorned with over 78,000 LED lights.

For me, the lights are more of a passion than a job.

They excite me very, very much.

It's a monumental structure 19 meters high,

40 meters long and 11 meters wide.

Nine kilometers of wires secure the LED lights in place.

They're four days into the job and have less than a week to finish it.

If the autumn rains arrive they'll have to down tools.

There is always a bit of a worry that it rains for a week continuously

or some sort of catastrophe.

Until it is turned on there is always anxiety in this job.

Five busy days later, the light festival opens

and Fernando's Cathedral of Light

undergoes an astonishing aerial transformation.

Tens of thousands of LED lights shine

bright in a rainbow rooftop of sparkling technicolor.

Across the center, a unique arrangement of LED lights appear

to set St. Nicholas Church ablaze.

An illuminated 140 kilogram moon watches over the Korenlei Quay.

The Vlasmarkt explodes into a million different hues

and the Fluvius Factory site turns into a kaleidoscope of patterns.

The Cathedral of Light is the brightest display of all.

It glows against the dark autumnal night dazzling visitors.

My favorite installation is definitely the Cathedral of Light.

I think it's fabulous and definitely the reason

that I came out this evening to see it.

Autumn provides the perfect backdrop for day trippers

to explore Belgians historic cities.

The capital, Brussels, dates back to 979

when settlers laid the first stone down.

It became the capital in 1831, a year after the country's founding.

One of the oldest buildings

is the Cathedral of St. Michele and St. Gudula,

which took three centuries to build.

But there's another church that dwarfs this cathedral in size.

Viewed from above, Brussels is a historic city

with thousands of compact medieval streets.

Pushing closer in reveals a strange key hole shaped patch of green

that breaks up the tightknit grid of streets.

This is the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Brussels.

This colossal church is the fifth largest in the world.

It's also home to a remarkable society

that has nothing to do with church matters.

Camille Castelet is part of a caving club that uses the buildings

spacious crypt to practice, climbing with harnesses.

In return, the club regularly abseils

along the rooftops of the church to inspect their condition.

You have a view of the whole of Brussels. It's amazing.

And there's the adrenaline rush too of being so high up.

It's a chilly autumn morning, and the cavers need

to inspect the Basilica walls for cracks and clear the gutters.

Using their caving skills, they crawl over the building's

giant domes and towers looking like tiny spiders.

And beyond them the whole of Brussels stretches out like a map.

The Basilica's roots go back to the 19th century,

and King Leopold I's plans for turning this area into a royal district.

But he never lived to see his vision realized.

Its clean, sharp angles

make it the largest art deco building in the world.

It takes the team three hours to inspect the roof.

Yet this is only half of their job for today.

One of the climbers cleans the tiles inside the dome,

43 meters above the ground.

An hour later, the team is done.

This remarkable quid pro quo between the church and the caving team

has helped to preserve this record breaking building

for another year.

Being able to help get rid of leaves from the gutters

is just small things, but they mean that the building

is maintained and can last over time.

I could do for another 10 years.

I love it.

The warm autumn sun provides the perfect climate

for Belgians to visit places like

the seven hidden trolls in De Schorre park,

where wooden sculptures rise up to 18 meters high.

And the medieval city of Durbuy

has been proclaimed the smallest city in the world by the locals.

Here, kayakers take advantage of the still warm temperatures

for a final day of canoeing.

Autumn also signals the last opportunity

to visit one of the region's most gigantic attractions.

Durbuy sits on the edge of Belgium's famous Ardennes region.

Zooming in

reveals an incredible aerial pattern at odds with its surroundings.

This is the Labyrinthe de Barvaux.

It's the country's biggest natural Labyrinth

and one of the largest in Europe.

It stretches out over 11 hectares, larger than 17 football pitches.

And its walls are made entirely from 600,000 corn plants

that soar up to three meters high.

Fabienne Delvaux has been tending

to the labyrinths day to day needs for 24 years.

The labyrinth really is a passion.

We eat labyrinth, we sleep labyrinth.

We think about the labyrinth.

It takes up all our days.

It's our whole life.

Every summer, it opens its doors

to young and old visitors who lose their bearings

in the gigantic corn stalks trying to navigate to the middle.

But all good things must come to an end.

The maze stays open for just 13 short weeks before the corn ripens.

The plant stems die and the labyrinth must close for another year.

For Fabienne and her team, this natural transformation

is an opportunity to erase the old and plan for the new.

A team of two harvesters

bulldoze their way through the cornfields tearing down the gigantic stalks.

From above, it appears like an industrial ballet

as the machines slowly munch through the labyrinth's graceful curves.

The corn is given to the cows that produce milk for the region.

The labyrinth is so vast it takes the twin harvesters

more than six hours to plough their way through the corn stalks.

And at this time of year, that means working into darkness.

By next morning, the labyrinth has completely vanished.

For Fabienne, the empty field is far from a sad sight.

It's a blank canvas that can be re-imagined.

Each year brings a unique new design, and planning for that starts right now.

To me, the ephemeral side of it is the motivation.

We welcome the visitors with a new design,

then summer ends.

We harvest corn and have a blank page again

to start a new story, the following summer.

As temperatures drop, iconic sites around the nation's capital

are covered by a silky white layer.

And in the parks a carpet of snow attracts young children with their sleds.

Winter is here.

Prior to its independence in 1830, Belgium was a volatile region,

fought over by empires like Spain, the Austrian Habsburgs and France.

This small nation boasts the greatest number

of castles per square meter in the world.

But not all of Belgium's ancient structures represented power and control.

Belgium is home to a number of medieval abbeys and monasteries

dotted all around the small country.

But one just south of Brussels stands apart.

A closer look

reveals a vast, sprawling ruin surrounded by trees.

This is Villers Abbey,

one of Europe's largest abbey ruins.

This monster-sized Cistercian abbey

was founded in 1146 by a small group of 17 monks.

At its peak, it housed 400 monks and its grounds

stretched across an area of almost 10,000 hectares as far as Antwerp.

The centerpiece is a majestic 94 meter long church

with round windows called oculi.

These sprawling grounds also contain a restored watermill,

a prison, and even a brewery.

Today, the abbey makes the same medieval beer that it once used to brew.

Sacked and left in ruins,

the abbey has lain abandoned for over 225 years.

Now, a conservation project is changing all that.

An initiative spearheaded by historian Anne Burette,

is breathing life back into the abbey.

This site is exceptional for Belgium because the abbey is in ruins,

but all the buildings are still present.

The monks occupied this place for 650 years

and so there is also a certain atmosphere.

Anne's work preserves all aspects of the abbey,

including the revamped gardens.

Today, Anne and her team are planting seedlings

in the herb garden in preparation for spring.

The plants in this garden are medieval herbs,

just like the ones monks planted for medicinal purposes.

The abbey first fell into decline in the 16th century

when the region was caught up in conflict with Spain.

It then fell victim to the French Revolution,

which suppressed the church across western Europe

and left the abbey completely abandoned.

And in the 19th century,

the ruins the revolution left behind inspired Victor Hugo

to write his famous book Les Miserables.

In the gardens, Anne plants the last of the seedlings.

In just a few weeks, these sleepy ruins

will explode with colors and perfumes again for visitors to enjoy.

The abbey always impresses me.

It changes every season, every day, so it's always a renewal or rediscovery.

And it's such a beautiful sight that you never get tired of it.

As colder temperatures set in,

Belgium's hilly southern forests see a white blanket of snow.

And in the towns the onset of winter is the signal for Christmas celebrations.

With its medieval architecture, Belgium is tailor-made

for Christmas markets straight out of a fairy tale.

And one city is perhaps the most festive of all.

In Belgium's north west

lies the historic city of Bruges.

It's situated inland,

but is connected to the coastline via the perfectly straight 12 kilometer

Boudewijn waterway.

Pushing through the clouds

reveals its egg shaped historic center

almost entirely surrounded by a ring road of canals.

Today, it's known as the Venice of the north.

These inner canals

were once part of Bruges old ramparts

and one of the best ways to appreciate

the city's connection to water and its medieval past is by boat.

It's Captain Leslie Maes's job to make sure the city's ancient arteries

are clear of rubbish and blockages.

This is particularly important at Christmas when tourists descend

on the city's waterways for late night shopping.

Oh yes, we've taken a lot of things out of the water already.

Yeah, a washing machine, a microwave, even bicycles.

Every year we take about four or five bikes out of the water.

Today, Captain Leslie

has four hours before sunset to clear the innermost canal

before the Christmas shoppers arrive.

The Captain's route takes him past the Burgher's Lodge.

Here, Bruges' trade reached its zenith in the 14th century

when goods linked to brewing and textiles could be transported far and wide

by the newly built canals.

Next, he navigates through the Quay of the Rosary.

In the middle ages,

this was a mooring station for trading the prized commodity of salt.

It was vitally important

because it was used to preserve food.

The Captain now has to tackle

the narrowest section of his route, the Bonifacius Bridge.

But it's the church of our lady that dominates the surroundings,

rising to 122 meters,

making it the highest point in the city.

As night descends, the city sparkles to life with hundreds of Christmas lights.

And places like the Quay of the Rosary light up as if in a fairy tale.

Captain Leslie makes one final check that the canal is spotless,

just in time for the winter glow festival

to project artworks onto the canal side buildings.

Once his job is finished, Leslie can finally relax

and enjoy a drink with his daughter in the city's Christmas market.

It's lovely in the dark.

I say isn't Bruges just beautiful?

I just love my job.

Time flies by.

In this small coastal country, history and tradition

meets dynamic ingenuity to create a nation

that has overcome its demanding landscape.

From the political center of Europe to its rural communities,

the citizens of Belgium come together to create the proud nation we see today.