Belgium for Travel + Leisure

Sean Rocha traveled to Ghent for Travel + Leisure to photograph (and write about) the charms of that wonderful canal-side university town that has long been overshadowed by its Flemish sisters Antwerp and Bruges but, as he soon discovered, combines the best of both.  Sean has spent quite a lot of time in Belgium, including six sun-less months in Brussels — much of it at Café Belga — where he was beginning work on a novel.  There is nothing legendary about Brussels: it is a city unloved by almost everyone — the Flemish and Walloons included — but for that very reason it has an unselfconscious grittiness more reminiscent of 1970s New York than most of spruced up contemporary Europe.  He had many very late and magical nights at the jazz club L’Archiduc, a place whose spirit he tried to capture for Le Monde d’Hermès — the article can be read here.

Click here to see the tear sheets for the article about Ghent published in Travel + Leisure in October 2010.  The photographs below include outtakes from the assignments for Travel + Leisure and Le Monde d’Hermès, plus others caught along the way.

Click on image to enlarge, then on the arrows to scroll through the gallery.  To inquire about contract or stock rates click here.

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