Alost

Aalst is best known for its annual carnival and also for its 'Black Man', the statue of Dirk Martens in the middle of the Grote Markt. Dirk Martens printed the first book with single letters in the Netherlands. An equally famous scion is the novelist Louis Paul Boon. Aalst also made a piece of Belgian political history in the early 20th century with priest Adolf Daens as the central figure, about whom Louis Paul Boon wrote his most famous book 'Pieter Daens or how in the 19th century the workers of Aalst fought against poverty and injustice' (1971). Aalst used to owe its prosperity, among other things, to hop cultivation. The cathedral of Amiens was the example for the Aalst St. Martin's Church, which was not finished. (source: wikipedia)

Sarah De Keyzer