Antwerp

Top things to do in Antwerp

1. 01

   Cathedral of Our Lady - Rubens under the tallest spire in the Low Countries

   culture arts history 👍 Popular

   A Gothic hulk whose single finished tower carries a carillon and the highest spire in Belgium and the Netherlands. Inside hang four Rubens altarpieces, among them the Raising of the Cross and the Descent from the Cross, in the building they were painted for. The house and studio he built off the Meir stand a ten-minute walk away.

2. 02

   Antwerpen-Centraal - the railway cathedral

   culture arts history 👍 Popular

   Louis Delacenserie's 1905 terminus is a domed stone waiting hall of marble and gilt with a vaulted iron train shed behind it, generally reckoned one of the handsomest stations anywhere. A rebuild slid two more platform levels underneath so through trains run below the old ones, and the view down the shaft is worth the detour.

3. 03

   MAS - the red tower over the old docks

   culture arts scenic 👍 Popular

   A stack of red sandstone boxes at Eilandje, each rotated a quarter turn, with a spiral of escalators climbing behind curtains of wavy glass. The galleries cover the port, world trade and the city's own collections; the rooftop panorama over the docks, the river and the spires costs nothing and stays open late.

4. 04

   Plantin-Moretus Museum - the world's oldest printing presses

   history culture arts ⭐ Highly recommended

   The Plantin family's house, courtyard garden and working print shop, kept intact since the sixteenth century and listed as UNESCO World Heritage in its own right. Two of the oldest surviving presses stand in the press room alongside racks of type punches, a library of proofs and Rubens portraits of the family.

5. 05

   KMSKA - Flemish masters and the world's Ensors

   culture arts ⭐ Highly recommended

   The Royal Museum of Fine Arts anchors the nineteenth-century Zuid grid, holding Rubens, Van Dyck, Memling and the largest collection anywhere of James Ensor's masks and skeletons. Photography at FOMU and contemporary art at M HKA sit a few blocks away, and the surrounding streets carry the city's densest run of restaurants.

6. 06

   Grote Markt and the Brabo fountain - guildhalls and a severed hand

   history scenic

   A triangular square of gilded guildhalls under a Renaissance town hall, with a fountain of the Roman soldier Brabo hurling the giant Antigoon's hand into the river, the legend the city's name is hung on. The Vlaeykensgang, a hidden medieval alley of cobbles and courtyards, opens off the Oude Koornmarkt a minute away.

7. 07

   Sint-Annatunnel - walk under the Scheldt on wooden escalators

   scenic history

   A 1933 pedestrian tunnel tiled white and lit like a submarine, dropping through original wooden escalators and rising on the left bank. The reward is the classic view back: cathedral spire, gabled quay and dock cranes in one line. Cyclists use it too, and it is the quickest way to the left-bank beach.

8. 08

   Diamond district - the trade behind Centraal Station

   shopping culture arts

   Four streets behind the station handle a large share of the world's rough diamonds, cut and traded largely by Indian Jain and Hasidic Jewish families whose synagogues and kosher shops fill the surrounding blocks. The bourses are closed to visitors, but the shopfronts, the security and the street life are unlike anywhere else in Europe.

9. 09

   MoMu and Nationalestraat - the Antwerp fashion quarter

   shopping culture arts

   The Royal Academy's fashion department produced the Antwerp Six and has kept producing since, and MoMu, the fashion museum, sits in the same block showing rotating cuts of its archive. Sint-Andries around it holds the designer flagships and concept stores, while Kammenstraat runs to vintage, streetwear and records.

10. 10

    De Koninck - the city brewery and its food market

    food nightlife music

    Antwerp's own amber ale is still brewed in Berchem, where the site opens as a self-guided tour ending at the tasting bar, with a cheese ripener, a bakery, a butcher and a coffee roaster sharing the yard. The stubby glass it comes in, a bolleke, is what you order for it in town.

11. 11

    Cogels-Osylei - the art nouveau streets of Zurenborg

    culture arts off beaten path

    An 1890s speculative suburb where the developers let the architects run riot: Egyptian, Venetian, Greek revival and full art nouveau facades lined up along one long avenue and the streets around it. Dageraadplaats a few minutes away is the neighbourhood square, ringed with terraces and one of the pleasanter places in the city to sit.

12. 12

    Middelheim Museum - sculpture loose in the parkland

    culture arts nature wildlife

    An open-air museum in parkland south of the centre, with Rodin, Moore, Manzu and a rolling programme of contemporary commissions set among lawns and old trees. Entry is free, the circuit takes a couple of hours, and it makes an easy tram ride out on a fine afternoon.

13. 13

    Red Star Line Museum - the ships that carried Europe west

    history culture arts

    In the sheds where the line processed its passengers, the museum tells the story of the millions of emigrants who sailed from these quays to New York between 1873 and 1934, Irving Berlin among them. Letters, luggage and the medical inspection rooms carry it, and a tower gives a view back over the docks.

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