Step off the train at Antwerp Central Station and your mouth will drop. You’re here for a weekend to munch on chocolate, sample the famously strong local beer and visit the beautifully preserved 1565 City Hall, but the first thing you see is Europe’s insanely over-the-top railway terminal.
This towering monument dates from 1905 and is a joyful rebuke to the everyday use of Brussels South station, where arriving Eurostar passengers change trains. Welcome, they say, this place is something special.
Antwerpers are known throughout Belgium for thinking they can do everything better than everyone else and right now they are doing everything they can to prove it.
Just two hours’ drive from St Pancras International, the city is buzzing with activity – from the bustling Grote Markt to the €100m refurbishment of the Royal Antwerp Museum of Fine Arts (KMSKA), which has reopened after 11 years.
Michael Hodges visits Antwerp, which is just two hours by train from London’s St Pancras International. Above is the city’s “busy” main market square
The 19th-century neoclassical building is one of Europe’s greatest cultural institutions and houses an excellent collection of local old masters such as Rubens and Van Dyck. But instead of building an extension, engineers dropped a new gallery into the courtyards – a series of large white boxes connected by illuminated staircases.
The older galleries are now dotted with light sources that create dizzying drops in the brightness below. But when it comes to painting, they still deliver the must-have hits. Find Hans Memling’s beautiful triptych, Christ surrounded by singing and musician angels, then visit the famous Rubens room, where your jaw will drop again at his Adoration of the Magi.
This giant masterpiece depicts two of the most famous camels in Western art looking at a sturdy Christ Child. As part of the KMSKA re-discovery, the camels have been recreated as a sort of soft fabric bench in front of the painting – one of ten new installations designed to encourage children to participate and also give weary adults a chance to stretch their legs to stretch kmska. be/nl).
Breathtaking: at the top is Antwerp Central, “the craziest rail terminal in Europe”
The Rubens-inspired soft camels in the recently renovated Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp
More daring innovations can be found at the recently opened Botanical Sanctuary, which has transformed a 12th-century monastery into a luxurious five-star stargazing hotel with a massive spa.
Want more Rubens? Stroll through the city center where several churches exhibit his work. One of them, the Cathedral of Our Lady, has artisanal chocolate shops nearby where you can buy “hands” – miniature versions of the city’s somewhat ominous symbol of a hand severed by a legendary giant that once terrorized the area.
In Our Lady you find Rubens’ Raising the Cross and his Assumption of the Virgin – God knows how many tens of millions they are worth, but there is no obvious certainty. In the city’s Diamond District, on the other hand, the gem-studded storefronts and vaulted ceilings are heavily guarded by a dedicated police station and roadblocks that can restrict access and block quick escapes.
The diamond trade was traditionally a Jewish trade and at the super friendly Hoffy’s on Lange Kievit Street you can enjoy Yiddish classics such as lokshen kugel, gefilte fish and matzo balls.
As Rubens’ tough characters make clear, Antwerp people love their food, and what they really love is the heart-warming stuff you get at Bomma, a traditional Flemish restaurant where plates of beef stew and cheese croquettes are served in appropriately Rubensian portions.
Michael recommends finishing hearty portions of beef stew with a walk upstairs to the MAS City Museum
Michael says that the Palais de Justice (above) is “perhaps the most beautiful building in Antwerp”
If you want to walk, head north to the port areas and the MAS City Museum. Or head south to Nieuw Zuid, an area full of new buildings by international architects overlooking British designer Richard Rogers’ fantastic Palace of Justice.
Don’t tell the locals, but this might be the most beautiful building in Antwerp.
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James is an author and travel journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a love for exploring new cultures and discovering unique destinations, James brings his readers on a journey with him through his articles.
