Van Gogh's Borinage and the Golden Chariot — Belgium's cultural capital surprise
Mons is the Wallonian city where Vincent van Gogh lived as a lay preacher among the coal miners of the Borinage district (1878–1880), an experience that shaped his art more profoundly than anything else in his life. The city's Baroque belfry (UNESCO) and the Grand-Place are among Belgium's finest civic spaces, and the Doudou festival — a dragon-slaying procession held each Trinity Sunday since 1349 — is one of Europe's most extraordinary folk rituals. Mons was European Capital of Culture in 2015.
Mons (Flemish: Bergen) was founded as a Roman camp, developed as a medieval county capital, and grew wealthy on coal mining and textile manufacturing. The cult of St George and the Doudou procession began in 1349 during the Black Death, when the townspeople carried a shrine through the streets to ward off plague — a tradition that has continued without interruption for 675 years. Van Gogh arrived in the nearby Borinage coal district in 1878, lived in poverty among the miners, and produced his first serious drawings there before moving to Brussels and ultimately Paris. Mons was heavily fought…