With the success of the Eurogames, an LGBT sports event hosted in Antwerp in 2007, it seemed only logical that the city took to putting on some Pride festivities of its own. This was Antwerp's first Pride, taking place on the Navigaytion weekend and pulling together gay and gay-friendly businesses and groups in order to attract a gay crowd to the city and to promote Antwerp as an LGBT destination.

Although Antwerp doesn't have a Gay Village as such, there are obviously plenty of gay and gay-friendly businesses throughout the city, with some of the LGBT venues still centring on the once gay centre - the Van Schoonhovenstraat area.

As you'd expect, the city has good rail, air and road links, with high speed trains linking it to Amsterdam, Paris and the rest of Europe. By changing at Brussels you can add London, Cologne and many other cities to the list of cities from which it's easy to reach. Antwerp also has its own airport with daily flights to London City and Manchester airports with VLM Airlines - who operate one of the most environmentally friendly short-haul aircrafts in the sky, the Fokker 50 Turboprop, so you don't need to feel too guilty about taking to the skies to get there!

Antwerp is in the Flanders region of Belgium, with the local language being Flemish, although most people here speak English and/or French, so there's rarely a language problem for us tourists!

Coming up on Antwerp's gay calendar... There'll undoubtedly be more Prides and more Navigaytion weekends to follow the success of this one, as well as the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association conference in 2010, and they've even put in a bid to host the 2013 Outgames.

More information:
Visit Flanders website
VLM Airlines website