Despite its small size Belgium, nestled between its larger neighbors Germany and France, is packed full of sights.

The country’s cities of Brussels and Bruges should top your itinerary with their UNESCO-acclaimed sites, but, don’t forget that Belgium’s less-explored countryside offers dense forests and lush valleys whilst along the Belgian North Sea coast there also lie extensive beaches and sand dunes.

The nation was right in the middle of Europe’s conflicts from Napoleon’s Waterloo to the battlefields of the First and Second World Wars.