Sights in Flanders
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Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten
The Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten is a monumental neoclassical edifice built at the end of the 19th century. Its stately rooms house an impressive collection of paintings dating from the 14th century to contemporary times and includes works by Flemish masters.
The size of the museum's collection means that paintings are sometimes rotated. To find the highlights you'll need to pick up a museum plan and audio headset (both free) from reception.
The Flemish Primitives are represented by Jan Van Eyck, Hans Memling, Rogier Van der Weyden and Gerard David. Highlights include Van Eyck's unusual, almost monotone Saint Barbara (1437), Memling's rich Christ among Angels Sing…
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Mode Museum
Fashion followers must start with Antwerp's mode museum, MoMu. It's located in the much-celebrated ModeNatie complex, home also to both the Flanders Fashion Institute and the fashion department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Sticking firmly to avant-garde, MoMu changes its exhibits every six months.
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The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb
Formidable queues form to see The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb (De Aanbidding van het Lams God), a lavish representation of medieval religious thinking that is one of the earliest-known oil paintings. Completed in 1432, it was painted as an altarpiece by Flemish Primitive artist Jan Van Eyck, and has 20 panels (originally the interior panels were displayed only on important religious occasions, but these days they're always open to view).
The work represents an allegorical glorification of Christ's death: on the upper tier sits God the Father flanked by the Virgin and John the Baptist and on the outer panels are the nude Adam and Eve. The lower tier centres on the lamb, s…
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Grote Markt
As in every great Flemish city, life in Antwerp radiates out from the Grote Markt, a vast, pedestrianised, triangular market square presided over by the impressive Renaissance-style stadhuis.
The Grote Markt is lined on two sides by Renaissance-style guildhalls, most of which were reconstructed in the 19th century. The tallest and most impressive is No 7, topped by a gilded statue of St George astride a rearing horse as he spears a dragon.
The voluptuous, baroque Brabo Fountain rises from a rough pile of rocks in the centre of the Grote Markt. Crafted in 1887 by Jef Lambeaux (who lived at Grote Markt 44), it depicts the legend of Antwerp's name.
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Begijnhof
Surrounded by protective walls, these whitewashed cottages - clustered around a central garden carpeted by daffodils in springtime - have an air of tranquil purity. Established as homes for a Catholic order of single and widowed women, there were around 1500 of these begijnhoven (or beguinages) in Belgium in the early 20th century, but only 22 remain. Dating from the 13th century, this is one of the best preserved, and home today to Benedictine nuns. The tiny on-site 't Begijnhuisje museum gives you an insight into a typical cottage. Afterwards, prolong the serenity with a stroll in the swan-filled Minnewater park nearby.
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Centraal Station
One of the city's premier landmarks is the extraordinary Centraal Station, designed by Louis Delacenserie at the start of the 20th century in a harmonious blend of styles. Steps lead from the main hall with its enormous dome up to the glass-covered train platforms above. The station and adjoining Koningin Astridplein have been undergoing massive works for years to accommodate the Eurostar and Thalys fast trains, thus directly linking the city to London and the rest of Europe. .
The station is also diamond central, with many shops selling diamonds inside the station, and the Diamond District immediately south-west of it.
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Openluchtmuseum voor Beeldhouwkunst Middelheim
Some 4km south of the city centre is a large, landscaped park known as the Openluchtmuseum voor Beeldhouwkunst Middelheim. It contains more than 300 works by sculptors, including notable nationals (Rik Wouters) and influential internationals (Auguste Rodin and Henry Moore).
Don't deny yourself the opportunity to ask a randomly selected passerby how to get to the (take a deep breath now) Openluchtmuseum voor Beeldhouwkunst Middelheim (Middelheim Open-Air Statuary Museum), a large park 4km (2.5mi) south of the centre that is scenically littered with over 300 sculptures, including carvings by Rik Wouters and Auguste Rodin.
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Museum aan de Stroom
The purpose-built multistorey Museum aan de Stroom is located between two docks - Bonapartedok and Willemdok - in the flourishing 't Eilandje district. Architecturally it's a big draw, designed like a modern spiral tower with a panorama platform offering city views. It brings together exhibits of the city's history from its earliest beginnings to recent times.
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Brabo Fountain
The voluptuous, baroque Brabo Fountain rises from a rough pile of rocks in the centre of the Grote Markt. Crafted in 1887 by Jef Lambeaux (who lived at Grote Markt 44), it depicts the legend of Antwerp's name.
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Groeningemuseum
Bruges' prized collection of art dating from the 14th to the 20th century is housed in the small Groeningemuseum. Highlights of this prized collection of art dating from the 14th to the 20th century are the Flemish Primitives (Room 2), including masterpieces by Jan Van Eyck and Hans Memling. But also look out for works by Hieronymus Bosch (Room 1), and surrealists René Magritte and Paul Delvaux (Room 9).
Room 1, entitled Municipal Patronage, concentrates on works from the 15th and 16th centuries, many of which were commissioned by the city of Bruges. The gruesome Judgement of Cambyses (1498) by Gerard David depicts the Persian king being led from his throne and flayed a…
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Onze Lieve Vrouwekathedraal
The splendid Onze Lieve Vrouwekathedraal is the largest and finest Gothic cathedral in Belgium. It was 169 years in the making (1352-521) and the work of several architects (Appelmans, Domien and Keldermans). Its graceful 123m-high spire was a mighty landmark in early times and is still visible from kilometres around today.
The combined effects of a fire in the Middle Ages, the Iconoclastic Fury and plundering during the French occupation mean that little of what you see today inside the cathedral is original Gothic. Instead, baroque decorations - notably four early canvases by Rubens - adorn its light but imposing interior.
From the centre of the seven-aisled nave, look s…
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Heilig-Bloedbasiliek
The Heilig-Bloedbasiliek takes its name from the relic of Christ's blood brought here after the Crusades, sometime between 1150 and 1200. The church has two distinct and highly contrasting sections: the sombre 12th-century lower chapel, built along pure Romanesque lines and almost devoid of decoration, and the much-renovated and lavishly embellished upper chapel, accessed by wide stairs near the lower chapel's entrance.
In the upper chapel is the silver tabernacle containing the phial that holds a few drops of the holy blood. This relic is still venerated in one-hour services at 10:00 and 15:00 every Friday. On Ascension Day it is paraded through the city in Bruges' bigge…
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Kantcentrum
Watch lace-makers at work at the Kantcentrum. Lace (kant in Flemish, dentelle in French) blossomed in Flanders in the 16th century. Naaldkant (needlepoint lace), which developed in Italy, was predominantly made in Brussels while kloskant (bobbin lace) is believed to have originated in Bruges. The latter requires thousands of painstaking and meticulous movements of bobbins and pins. Each lace-maker had her own patterns, which stayed in the family and were handed down through generations.
The Kantcentrum is best known for its bobbin lace-making demonstrations - informal gatherings of 20 or so women who congregate (afternoons only) in a small room at the rear of the complex.…
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Museum Plantin-Moretus
The World Heritage-listed Museum Plantin-Moretus is home to the world's first industrial printing works. This fascinating museum deals with a prosperous 16th- and 17th-century printing family headed by Christoffel Plantin. Plantin moved from France to Antwerp where he set up as a bookbinder in 1548. Eight years later he started a printing business that eventually became the Low Countries' largest printing and publishing concern and a magnet for intellectuals, scientists and humanists.
On Plantin's death, the business passed to his son-in-law, Jan Moretus, and later to Jan's son, Balthasar, a friend of Rubens.
Some of the family portraits exhibited inside this museum are …
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Rubenshuis
Rubenshuis, the prestigious home and studio of the city's most celebrated painter, Pieter Paul Rubens, it was little more than a ruin when acquired by the city in 1937. Superbly restored along original lines, it's now Antwerp's chief attraction, despite the fact that only a handful of Rubens' lesser works are exhibited here. Rubens built this beautiful Flemish baroque mansion in 1611 when he was 34 years old; he died here 29 years later.
The building is divided in two: on the left are the living quarters and an elaborate art gallery where Rubens displayed sculptures and paintings by artists he admired; to the right you'll see the master's studio where he taught and worke…
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Markt
Bruges' nerve centre is the historic Markt, a large open square flanked by medieval-style buildings and bustling with horse-drawn carriages, open-air restaurants and camera-clicking tourists. Standing tall at its centre is a monument to Pieter De Coninck and Jan Breydel, the leaders of the Brugse Metten, and lording over everything is the fabulous belfry.
Most of the gabled guildhalls edging the Markt are not original. Notable at Markt 16 is Craenenburg café; in this building the Hapsburg heir Maximilian of Austria was imprisoned by the leaders of the city in 1488 after attempting to restrict their privileges. When Maximilian later became emperor, he took revenge by direc…
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Cogels-Osylei
This area, about 2km southeast of Centraal Station, is famed for the eclectic architecture found in a handful of streets. The showcase is Cogels-Osylei, a bazaar of all possible house styles. Here the city's affluent citizens went wild a century ago, creating competing and highly contrasting façades ranging in style from Art Nouveau and Flemish baroque to neoclassical and neo-Renaissance. Roofs and towers spiked with onion tops or witches' hats, wrought-iron balconies, bay windows, slate tiles, stained glass and mosaics…you name it, this street's got it.
Most of the buildings were constructed between 1894 and 1914 and involved many architects. In the 1960s the houses f…
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Rockoxhuis
The Rockoxhuis is a 17th-century mansion that once belonged to Nicolaas Rockox, a former city mayor and friend and patron of Rubens. It's built around a central courtyard, is furnished in classical Flemish style, and holds a small but esteemed collection of paintings, including works by Rubens, Jordaens, Van Dyck and Pieter Breughel the Younger.
Seek out the latter's Proverbs (De Spreekwoorden in Flemish). This engaging work is no run-of-the-mill village scene - it depicts 108 Flemish proverbs. Find the man bashing his head against a brick wall (ie symbolising stupidity) or the guy peeing on the moon (ie trying to do the impossible). The museum sells a card explaining eac…
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Museum St Janshospitaal
The prestigious Museum St Janshospitaal is housed in a restored chapel of a 12th-century hospital. It's home to six masterpieces by Hans Memling, plus many works by lesser-known painters of that time. Memling is noted for the fine quality of the figures in his religious paintings, such as the central panel of the Mystic Marriage of St Catherine triptych (1479) that's presented here.
Perhaps more enchanting is the reliquary of St Ursula. Shaped like a miniature wooden Gothic church, the reliquary's six painted panels depict the medieval tale of the beautiful St Ursula and the 11,000 virgins who were massacred by the Huns in Germany while returning from a pilgrimage to Rome…
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Museum Mayer Van den Bergh
Museum Mayer Van den Bergh occupies a simulated 16th-century townhouse, built in 1904 by the mother of Fritz Mayer Van den Bergh, a prosperous art connoisseur who had died a few years earlier aged 41. His highly prized collection of sculptures and paintings, including works by Quinten Matsijs and Cornelius De Vos, form the core of the museum.
The collection's most famous piece is Pieter Breugel the Elder's Dulle Griet (Mad Meg), an allegorical painting in which a demented woman roams a grotesque war-torn landscape marked by demons and monsters. This is one of Breugel's most Bosch-like paintings and interpretations of its meaning vary - some say it's an allegory of misogyn…
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Nationaal Scheepvaartmuseum Steen
This engaging museum houses model ships, maritime maps and instruments in the gatehouse and front section (which is all that remains) of the 13th-century castle, Steen. Highlights include an intriguing nautical totem shaped like a snake's head and boats from around the world, including an 18th-century coracle or skin boat. Beneath the next-door raised promenade is the museum's open-air collection of river barges, canal boats and De Schelde P905, a 1950's Belgian navy patrol ship.
It's on the foreshore of the River Scheldt to the immediate west of the old centre, within the partly-restored confines of a castle called the Steen that dates from 1200 and is Antwerp's oldest …
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Stedelijk Museum Voor Actuele Kunst (SMAK)
The motivation for many people's visit to Ghent is its Museum of Contemporary Art, a.k.a. SMAK. It holds a highly regarded permanent collection of local works (including Karel Appel, Pierre Alechinsky and Panamarenko) and works of international celebrities (like Christo, Warhol and Hockney), though of late it's been packing these away to devote its space to single major exhibits (such as Paul McCarthy's blood-spattered installations), so it's worth checking the programme.
Look out for works by Karel Appel, Pierre Alechinsky and Panamarenko - three of Belgium's best-known contemporary artists - as well as artworks by international celebrities like Christo, Warhol and Hockn…
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Justitiepaleis
The city's new Justitiepaleis, reminiscent of Sydney's Opera House, will blow away any preconceptions that architecture in Antwerp is all old hat. The work of renowned British architect Richard Rogers, the man behind London's Lloyd's building and Paris' Pompidou Centre, its gleaming sails can easily be seen rising at the end of Amerikalei, down the southern end of 't Zuid. This area has largely been left begging in recent decades, but this flashy new addition has already sparked a real-estate boom.
During its construction in 2005, controversy reigned over its cost - quoted at around €75 million but eventually coming in at around €250 million.
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St Jacobskerk
The tomb of Rubens and his family is the reason most visitors come to St Jacobskerk. Located in a small chapel behind the high altar, the tomb is adorned with a painting, Our Lady Surrounded by Saints, which Rubens executed specifically for his tomb and which is actually a family portrait, with the master as St George and his wives and father the other figures. The church was the place of worship for the aristocracy and is a showcase of their wealth.
Started in 1491, it took nearly 150 years to build and the result is a Gothic façade cloaking mainly baroque embellishments inside.
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Burg
Smaller but arguably more impressive than the Markt is the adjoining Burg. For more than five centuries the former palace on this majestic site was the seat of the counts of Flanders. The St Donatian Cathedral also stood here until 1799, when religious zealots tore it down. These days the Burg contains the city's most appealing cluster of buildings, plus the contemporary Toyo Ito pavilion, a geometric bunker that sits in a pool of stagnant water opposite the city hall.
To some it creates an image of lightness, progress, transience and evolution; to others it's simply a form that gets the cold shoulder.
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