Northeast Belgium
Tucked into the yard behind the tourist office (from where you access it), this museum's collection mostly celebrates the rich grave finds from Roman…
Must-see attractions in Northeast Belgium
Northeast Belgium
Mechelen’s begijnhof is no longer walled but retains an area of flower-strung old-city lanes with plenty of charm. The junction of Schrijnstraat and…
Northeast Belgium
Designed for kids and teenagers but fascinating for those of all ages, Technopolis is one of Belgium’s best science museums, with dozens of hands-on…
Northeast Belgium
Ringed by a reflective moat, picture-perfect, medieval Kasteel van Horst enjoys a delightful rural setting. The interior is undergoing long-term…
Northeast Belgium
This working collection of four 1930s mechanical wonders is charmingly old-fashioned if far too slow-paced for most modern attention spans. The highlight…
Antwerp
An astounding 80% of the world's uncut diamonds are traded in Antwerp. Four dour exchange buildings lie along heavily guarded Hoveniersstraat and…
Northeast Belgium
Celebrating Turnhout’s role as one of the world’s largest producers of playing cards (1.3 million packs per day), this extensive museum displays a range…
Leuven
Just off the main inner ring road around 800m northwest of Leuven train station, this world-famous, highly automated brewery offers mostly group tours,…
Northeast Belgium
Hoogstraten's fabulous belfry is an enormous 105m-tall red-brick edifice picked out with dots of white-stone detail in a style known as speklagen. Dating…
Antwerp
Founded in 1843, Antwerp Zoo is one of the world’s oldest and best-respected zoological parks. Enclosures in the 10-hectare site are state of the art and…
Northeast Belgium
This delightful botanical garden is directly north of Bokrijk Openluchtmuseum. However, access is a bit of a fiddle from there: although all three…
Antwerp
Close to the art nouveau glories of Zurenborg, contrastingly forbidding Krugerstraat and Minckeleresstraat are so festooned in graffiti that they are…
Northeast Belgium
In medieval times, abbots from wealthy monasteries would often travel to Mechelen to consult the primate (archbishop) and thus required city residences…
Northeast Belgium
St-Sulpitius Church is built in two discordantly different colours of stone. Lacking a substantial tower, its exterior seems oddly thrown together, but…
Northeast Belgium
In a 1688 convent-house, this excellent little museum introduces the life of a begijn starting with an eight-minute video (English available) and a…
Northeast Belgium
Balancing the massive bulk of St-Romboutskathedraal across Mechelen's splendid Grote Markt is the contrastingly poetic stadhuis in all its devil-may-care…
Northeast Belgium
The city’s step-gabled courthouse was once Margaret of Austria's palace (from 1506). Despite many subsequent alterations, it maintains a gorgeous…
Northeast Belgium
This breathtakingly huge Brabantine Gothic church has suffered numerous reconstructions, notably after bombing during WWII. Nonetheless it retains a very…
Northeast Belgium
Stand amid the flowerboxes of the Aragonstraat bridge and look southeast for a beautiful perspective on this huge Gothic church with its distinctive clock…
Northeast Belgium
Founded in 1128, this abbey-church was majestically rebuilt after 1660 with a tall stone bell-tower and one of Belgium’s most breathtaking baroque…
Northeast Belgium
Sitting on Tienen's central rise, Sint-Germanuskerk's remarkable early-13th-century belfry is a towering Romanesque structure topped by 16th-century…
Antwerp
Beautiful it ain’t. But its sheer jaw-dropping scale makes driving through the world's fourth-largest port complex an unforgettable experience.
Northeast Belgium
This dome-crowned three-wing basilica has an unusual circular interior, a superb Paradise Lost pulpit and brilliant 1690 carved confessionals. An…
Northeast Belgium
With two leafy quadrangles of pretty whitewashed houses and a remarkably oversized baroque chapel, this peaceful spot is one of Flanders' least-known…
Northeast Belgium
A Trappist monastery since 1836, Westmalle is better known for the beers that are brewed here than for the building itself, which is hidden away behind…
Antwerp
Help U Zelve has arguably the city's most beautiful and harmonious art nouveau facade. Built in 1901 by architects Van Asperen and Van Averbeke as the…
Northeast Belgium
Push open the door of this 13th-century former church and you'll see not pews but the flower-decked graves of 145 brave Belgians who died in August 1914…
Antwerp
Part of a 1901 town house called De Vijf Continenten (The Five Continents), ’t Bootje has a fabulous wrought-iron lamp but is named for its little ship…
Northeast Belgium
Guarded by a cannon, the spired, 16th-century Matten Thoren mansion hosts this lovable city history museum whose mishmash of art and artefacts range from…
Northeast Belgium
Start from the south side of the basilica for this state-of-the-art iPod-led guided tour through the post-Roman history of Tongeren seen through the lens…
Northeast Belgium
Three blocks south and west of Onze Lieve Vrouwebasiliek is a small web of very pretty backstreets that once formed Tongeren’s begijnhof. One furnished…
Northeast Belgium
Turnhout was founded as an 11th-century hunting retreat for the Hertog (Duke) of Brabant. By the 13th century their lodge had developed into the moated…
Antwerp
Strangely easy to miss despite its towering bulk, this church was consecrated in 1571 as part of a Dominican monastery, and thoroughly rebuilt after a…
Northeast Belgium
The impressive if oddly shaped church of OLV-ten-Poel has a soaring 70m 15th-century tower in white stone capped by a 1654 baroque spire and fronted with…
Antwerp
The architectural delight of the Zurenborg suburb goes well beyond art nouveau, as you'll see at this humorous 1900 chalet-style house designed by Jules…
Northeast Belgium
From the 7th century, the relics of the local saint named St-Trudo made Sint-Truiden a major medieval pilgrimage centre. These relics are now housed in…
Northeast Belgium
After years of preparation, Mechelen's historical museum should have reopened by the time you read this, offering state-of-the-art interactive exhibits…
Northeast Belgium
Built in white sandstone, the 15th-century Gothic church of the 'two Johns' (Baptist and Evangelist) looks fairly unremarkable from the outside. However,…
Antwerp
This excellent museum of photography has a regularly changing roster of exhibitions from historical themes to no-holds-barred work by contemporary photo…
Northeast Belgium
The most unique evocation of Tienen's rich Roman heritage is this trio of grave mounds commemorating Marcus Probius Burrus. Left overgrown for a century…
