Antwerp in 3 days: the city that was the commercial capital of the Western world in the 1550s — the first stock exchange (1531), Rubens's Baroque palace, the diamond quarter that still handles 80% of global rough diamond trade, the fashion revolution of the Antwerp Six (1988) and a beer cellar with bottles dating to 1977.
The largest Gothic church in the Benelux (123m tower) houses the 4 altarpieces Rubens painted for specific altar positions and that have hung in those positions (minus Napoleon's 21-year confiscation) since 1640. The Descent: the most reproduced Flemish Baroque painting.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Stadhuis (Flemish Renaissance, 1561), the gilded guild house facades, and the Brabo fountain (the legend of the severed giant hand thrown in the Scheldt — the folklore origin of "Antwerp" (hand-werpen)).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe studio where the Rubens "factory" of 20+ assistants produced the most commercially successful art operation in Baroque Europe. The Italianate garden portico (a Roman triumph arch in Flemish Antwerp) and the Self-Portrait (c. 1628) in the original room.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Belgian frite (blanched at 160°C then crisped at 180°C in beef fat): the paper cone on the Grote Markt corner with frietsaus or the stoofvlees sauce made from the Flemish beef braise in De Koninck ale.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuide80% of the world's rough diamonds trade through this 1km square (500 companies, 2,000 cutters): the Diamond Museum shows the Antwerp brilliant cut (1447 — the predecessor of the modern round brilliant) and the four still-active diamond bourses.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe 10-floor tower on the Eilandje waterfront (2011): the port and world trade history collection inside, but the rooftop (free, accessible by outside escalators) gives the most comprehensive panorama of Antwerp, the Scheldt and the world's second-largest port.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Royal Academy graduates who drove to London Fashion Week in 1988 with no invitation: Dries Van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester, Walter Van Beirendonck. The museum archives their work and the continuing Belgian fashion dominance. The Dries Van Noten boutique (in the renovated Handelsbeurs) is next door.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe most significant museum in Antwerp: the preserved 1555 printing house with the two oldest surviving printing presses in the world, the original typefaces (95 styles, 100,000 pieces) and the Biblia Regia — the Bible printed in 4 languages simultaneously for Philip II of Spain.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe competition street: each villa by a different architect, each trying to outdo the next in Neo-Gothic, Moorish, Louis XVI and pure Art Nouveau extravagance. The Sunflower House, the White House and the Dawn House are the most elaborate facades in Belgium.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideOpen since 1974, collecting since 1979: the 700+ bottle list includes vintage Trappist ales, aged Cantillon Gueuze lambics and the rarest beer in the world (Westvleteren 12, only available from the Saint Sixtus Abbey by phone appointment). Possibly the most important single beer destination on Earth.
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