It's official: BXL tops A'dam

[The Wizard]

As I said... to each his own.

But I live smack dab in the middle of the bloody Bible Belt, on Goeree-Overflakkee, as rural as it gets (though you can usually find me in glorious Rotje Knor), and the core of our village looks almost exactly the same as the core of Amsterdam save perhaps the height of the buildings (in Amsterdam they're marginally higher... wow).

I just find that most Dutchmen -- that is, those not from Rotterdam -- view the concept of "city" exactly like they did five centuries ago... yawn. Real cities are Rome, Istanbul, NYC, Paris (though everybody knows it's crackin' in Paris outside of the city core! ), Miami, and yes, Rotterdam... that's where it's up. Amsterdam, Utrecht -- anything in the Benelux not Rotterdam... it just looks like a freakin' village! Get me outta here and back to the urban environment!

And Brussel is the most important city in the EU

For political reasons, maybe... economically (but not only that!), I fear Rotterdam is simply the EU's most important city by quite a margin -- all thanks to its harbor, the gates of Europe. 'Course, you could argue that that has little to do with the real city of Rotterdam (the Europoort is ten kilometers away at the least), but most of the riverboats are near the city core...