Aalst Travel Guide

Few places in Belgium embrace carnival as completely as Aalst. The city’s character is steeped in irreverent, ritualised satire that echoes its agricultural past of hop cultivation, brewing traditions and onion farming. Known as the ‘City of Onions’, Oilsjt—as Aalst is called in the local dialect—is bound to its flamboyant carnival spirit and to the fiercely proud locals known as the ajuinen.