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The Scheldt port
A day in Antwerp
Antwerp is a port city with a medieval core, a long tradition of painting, and a diamond trade that still matters. It is also a comfortable place to spend a day walking, then sit down to beer or chocolate.
The Grote Markt is the natural starting point. The square mixes Gothic, Renaissance and later facades, and its centrepiece is the Brabo fountain, which retells the legend of a Roman soldier slaying a giant — the story often given for the city's name. From here the streets of the old centre are close at hand.
Museums, with one important caveat
The old Ethnographic Museum on the Suikerrui closed in 2009. Its collections, together with those of other city museums, now live in the MAS — the Museum aan de Stroom — a riverside building that looks at the city, the port and Antwerp's links with the wider world.
The Rubenshuis, the painter's former home and studio, remains one of the city's essential addresses, but the historic artist's residence has been closed for renovation since 2023. The garden, a new entrance and the Rubens Experience have already reopened; the house itself is not expected back before 2030. If you are coming for the interiors, check the current opening notes before you go. In the meantime the Royal Museum of Fine Arts (KMSKA), reopened in 2022, is the place for a large collection of painting.
Something to eat and drink
Around the Grote Markt and through the old streets you will find chocolate pralines, oude jenever — a smooth grain spirit particular to this part of the Low Countries — and the brown cafés where Belgian beer is still the ordinary order. Antwerp is also a practical base for the rest of the country: trains run frequently to Brussels, Ghent and Bruges, and Brussels Airport is reachable by rail and bus. If the capital is your next stop, the Brussels notes pick up from here.