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Liege spent the better part of the Middle Ages as an independent ecclesiastical principality, ruled by prince-bishops who answered to the Holy Roman Emperor rather than to any king of France or Belgium, and the city's sense of independence is still palpable in its character. The Palais des Princes-Eveques on the Place Saint-Lambert has two courtyards with intricately carved Gothic capitals, and the scale of the bishops' ambition is readable in every corbel. The Musee d'Art Wallon in the palace cellars holds the finest collection of Walloon painting outside Brussels.

Georges Simenon, the creator of Inspector Maigret, was born in Liege in 1903 and grew up in the Outremeuse neighborhood, an island formed by the arms of the Meuse, whose working-class character shaped the detective fiction that would eventually sell 500 million copies worldwide.

The Maison Curtius museum holds Simenon memorabilia alongside archaeological collections, but the more telling tribute is walking the Outremeuse itself, which still has the cafe culture and neighborhood density that Simenon described as the world Maigret inhabited instinctively.