' The university of Leuven, founded in 1425 upon initiative of both the city and the local duke, provides the city with its distinctive character.
Leuven is a window on the world.
Young people, among them an conspicuously large number from abroad, dominate the bustling city landscape. As a matter of fact, an ever increasing number of students from both inside and outside Europe have come to Leuven for their academic formation. At the same time, the city is attracting more and more visitors from every corner of the world, tourists drawn to the city and its university. Leuven: age old - alive and jumping! Functional, historical buildings are intertwined with modern edifices: the gothic City Hall, the University Hall, the Great Beguinage, the magnificent churches and university colleges, Arenberg Castle, the monumental University Library, that rose from the ashes of the Great War thanks to gifts from the United States, Arenberg Library, the University Hospital site Gasthuisberg, the Philips site, the Provincial Government Building, the renewed railway station and its surroundings. Leuven is full of life.'from
Marc Vervenne, rector of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
in L. GEYSEN, Louvain. A series of watercolors, Uitgeverij Peeters, Leuven, 2006, p.5.
inner city map