Top 10 things to do in Antwerp

Antwerp is one of Europe’s relatively unknown gems that visitors immediately fall in love with. It has spectacular historic and modern architecture to look at, the Scheldt River to stroll around, and museums that can occupy your entire vacation. There is something for everyone here, from the fabulous Peter Paul Rubens House to the Red Star Line Museum, where the days of the great ocean liners come to life. Don’t miss the MoMu Fashion Museum, as Antwerp has always been at the forefront of fashion design. There is the extraordinary Plantin-Moretus Museum, which is the only museum in the world to have UNESCO World Heritage status… and much more.

How to get to Antwerp

If traveling from London, take the Eurostar train from London St. Pancras to Brussels Midi. There are regular Eurostar trains throughout the day that take 2 hours and 1 minute. Book your Eurostar ticket here. Your Eurostar ticket offers you courtesy travel from Brussels to Antwerp, and from Antwerp to Brussels on a return ticket, and the connection is direct from Brussels Midi. The train journey between Brussels and Antwerp takes about 56 minutes.

If you are traveling from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport to Brussels Midi, the direct train takes 1 hour and 20 minutes and there are regular trains throughout the day. You will have to buy a separate train ticket from Charles de Gaulle airport to Brussels Midi.

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Enter the world of Peter Paul Rubens

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+32 3 201 15 55

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Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) was not only one of the world’s greatest Old Master artists, he also became an international diplomat in the complex political world of 17th century Europe. His charm and good looks helped him work for Marie de Medici (widow of Henry IV of France), and later for Charles I of England (designing the ceiling of the Banquet House in Whitehall for the King).

From the age of 10, Rubens lived in Antwerp in this elegant house that was converted into a museum in 1946 and recently renovated. The house was designed as an Italian palace with a Baroque portico, a gallery of semi-circular statues, and wood-paneled rooms ranging from the kitchen to the richly decorated living rooms. There is a large studio where the artist and his students produced works for the royal families and nobles of Europe who were his main patrons, and a charming formal garden that the painter and his family enjoyed.

The house offers a wonderfully intimate look at many of Rubens’s works, but is also filled with what is described as ‘Distinguished Visitors’, a series of paintings by contemporaries like Van Dyck on more or less permanent display in museums and galleries. of all the world. .

If you’re a true fan, go after house viewing to visit Rubens’ tomb in St. James’s Church, the parish church for most Antwerp citizens. More of his works are exhibited in the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal, the Cathedral of Our Lady.

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Visit a 400-year-old print shop

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This great, imposing and grand house is hidden in a side street in the center of Antwerp. You walk in and you walk into the house and workshops of the Plantin-Moretus publishing house, the most important and largest printers in Europe at that time.

The house was built around a charming 17th century formal garden with rooms on four sides. The first rooms you visit are domestic, a splendid series of dining rooms and living rooms that show the wealth and power of the family. Some have oak paneled walls; others have walls lined with gilt leather or hung with portraits of family and friends.

But the house was more than a house and the rest of the building was used for the printing press. You can see rooms full of wooden presses that are the oldest in the world and you can see demonstrations of how the presses worked. The old bookstore takes you back to the days when wealthy customers came to shop, their silver and gold coins weighed to verify their value before they were allowed to take home their precious books.

The Plantin-Moretus firm produced 55 works a year, employing 22 men who worked 14 hours a day. They acted as the official printer of Antwerp, and the royal typographer to King Philip II of Spain. His 8-volume Plantin Polyglot Bible with Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Syriac text was the most sophisticated production of the time; other of his publications are shown here in facsimile.

The Plantin-Moretus Museum is a true treasure, the only museum in the world to receive UNESCO World Heritage status.

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Learn about the emigrant journey from Europe to the new world

The Red Star Line Museum tells the stories of some of the millions of poor emigrants who left Europe via Antwerp to seek a better life in America in the 1800s and 1900s. It tells their stories in the most compelling ways. You see the faces of emigrants in old photographs; follow their travels from all over Europe to Antwerp on maps, journeys that often require months of harrowing effort, and in many cases, you can listen to them with headphones that cut through the rest of the world around them and carry it into their lives in an extraordinarily powerful way. .

You have real sympathy for little Ita Moëll who suffered from trachoma when she was examined on Ellis Island for disease and sent back to Europe. Cholera, typhoid and trachoma were the diseases the United States feared the most, and any outbreak in Europe brought stricter controls in both Antwerp and New York, as well as a backlash against immigrants.

There were thousands of immigrants who were absorbed into American life taking the lowest manual jobs. And there were immigrants who enriched American life, like Israel (‘Izzy’) Berlin. Many were Jews, fleeing real danger and prejudice, particularly in the 1930s, from countries like Russia, Germany, and Eastern Europe.

The Red Star Line museum, housed in the company’s historic offices, continues to tell new stories as visitors, particularly North Americans, visit to find out if their family members left here for a new life. Before leaving, climb the stairs to the roof to see the quays of the Scheldt River. Look down and you will see plates that show the distances. Kiev is 1,826 kilometers away; Odessa is 1989, Warsaw 1137 and Berlin 632. Walk the other way and you will see the distances to the New World: Montreal is 5526 kilometers away; New York 5879 and Philadelphia 6016. Brings home the scale of life-changing journeys that took emigrants from all that was familiar and safe to an uncertain future on the other side of the world.

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Tour the unusual MAS (aan de Strom Museum)

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+32 3 338 44 00

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You can’t miss MORE: This tall asymmetrical red brick building acts as a lighthouse on Eilandje, an island that is fast becoming Antwerp’s coolest neighborhood. The exhibits are organized on the 10 floors, each with a different theme. One of the most surprising is the first where more than 180,000 objects are stored in the museum that are not exhibited. Labeled and numbered, they hang on the walls or are placed in special cabinets, waiting their turn to be presented to the public. It gives a very good idea of how complex it is to organize a museum. Other exhibitions take life and death; Pre-Columbian art; the history of power and prestige and how it is displayed and used; and Antwerp’s place as one of the major ports in the world.

Then go up to the top floor for the best 360-degree view over Antwerp. You see domestic homes where homeowners have made ingenious use of their roofs, church steeples that mark the horizon, the Scheldt River and, in the distance, the port of Antwerp with its endless industrial clutter of cranes, piers and power stations. .

Tip: Get on the Panorama platform when it’s dark during the summer months (April to October). This free attraction stays open until midnight and gives you a brilliant nighttime view of the city.

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Experience Antwerp fashion at the Mode (MoMu) fashion museum

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+32 3 470 27 70

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For decades, the group of global influencers ‘Antwerp Six’ highlighted the preeminence of Antwerp fashion designers, so if you have any interest in the subject, make the Mode Fashion Museum one of your stops. It only has temporary exhibitions, but these are impressive. The current exhibition, Margiela, The Hermes Years, runs until August 28, 2017, and will be followed by one more until spring 2018, when the museum closes for a major renovation.

Only Dries Van Noten from the original Antwerp Six still has a separate store, located on the fabulous corner site of Het Modepaleis a couple of minutes walk away. The other designers like Martin Margiela and Ann Demeulemeester sell through their own houses and in other major stores.

Antwerp still produces a formidable crop of young designers, and every May and October current designers hold their special sales (including Van Noten, Margiela and Demeulemeester). Check with the tourist office for more information. Every fashionista should be there!

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Visita Cathedral of Our Lady, la Catedral de Nuestra Señora

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+32 3 213 99 51

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This impressive and vast Gothic cathedral was built between 1352 and 1521 on the site of a smaller church. Its soaring 123-meter-high spire stands out like a beacon from anywhere in Antwerp, and was once the magnet for pilgrims who flocked here by the thousands. Step inside to see the early paintings of Rubens and the Old Masters by other painters scattered around the cathedral, framed in glorious red against the bare white walls.

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Maravillate con la Gran Plaza Grote Markt

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The medieval square that is the heart of the city is as extravagant as any of the other great Flemish squares like Brussels and Bruges. The Grote Markt, once home to the merchants and guilds that enriched the city, now hums to the rhythm of tourists. It’s pedestrianized, so sit in one of the cafes that line the square and enjoy the extraordinary Brabo fountain and the wonderful Renaissance-style town hall that was completed in 1565.

The Antwerp tourist office is on the square.

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Visit one of the oldest zoos in the world.

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+32 3 224 89 10

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When you arrive in Antwerp you immediately find two wonderful pieces of architecture. Coming by train, you’ll be overwhelmed by the splendid 1905 Centraal Station, one of the most striking in Europe. Walk out and to your left you see another architectural glory: Antwerp Zoo.

Founded in 1843, it’s one of the world’s oldest zoos with a world-wide reputation for its special breeding programme. It has lovely buildings like the Egyptian temple, built in 1856 and the antelope building built in 1861 in Oriental style. It’s recently been renovated and a reef environment area has been added to the aquarium, making this a must for anyone visiting with a family.

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Drink the beer

Like all Belgian cities, beer and beer cellars are a major part of life here. Take the number 9 or 15 tram out to De Koninck, Antwerp’s historic brewery, for a tour of the brewery and the chance to sample some of their products. The brewery is housed in the original early 20th-century industrial building and the tour takes you through interactive exhibitions on brewing and over a walkway where you look down over the brewery hall until you end up in the cosy ‘pub’.

There’s a good shop selling beer and the famous bolleke (bowl) glasses. Also on the premises is a top cheese shop and a very good independent butchers shop.

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Try the frites

Frites (fries) are a staple part of the Belgian diet; the Belgians are the greatest consumers of fries in Europe. And the frites they produce are very good indeed, particularly in Antwerp which claims to be the city to have invented the concept of the friterie. While there are lots of places to drop into for a quick frites fix, the one you must try is Frites Atelier at 32 Korte Gasthuisstraat. It’s always busy but you might get lucky and be able to grab a chair at the four or five small tables inside. Otherwise stand outside at a high table.

And the fries? They are quite delicious, but they should be. The Frites Atelier is a small chain started by chef Sergio Herman, awarded a Michelin star. You can get plain fry, then choose the sauce you get from the big stone dispensers. Or, indulge in a real treat and top the fries with Belgian stew or boudin blanc.