Antwerp is a city of modern square design shapes sitting on top of an older city sitting on an even older city. I went for three full days with a day's travel either side. Initially I was going to stay more on the eastern side but I found a reasonably priced hotel near the river just out of the way of all the touristy bits but near enough that I could comfortably amble towards them.

Scooter next to the MAS Museum aan de Stroom in Antwerp.

Getting about

Antwerp is a very walkable city. The centre is big but not massive and you can quite easily orient yourself around as there’s a large river that runs through it and a docks at the top which kind of caps it off.

Lots of little squares, nooks and crannies and even littler courtyards off to the sides. From living in York I recognised areas where this era had been built on top of that era, there’s medieval parts mixed with art deco and post war all within the same street in some cases. It very much has the feeling of an international city - both old and modern.

I got there by train from London to Brussels then transferred to a quick local train to get up to Antwerp itself as the Eurostar doesn’t go up that far. If you want to get to other cities, the SNCB phone app is dead easy to use. Note that there’s a separate international app if you want to go out of the country (I whizzed up to Rotterdam for a day to meet a friend for lunch - check me out being a sophisticated traveller).

Basketball hoop at sunset at Basketbalplein Sint-jansvliet in Antwerp.

Food

I based what I would look at on the Fare Mag Antwerp edition, it turns out that a fair number of those had closed or weren’t open when I was there that week.

Patat! Or frites in Belgium was always going to be a requirement, definitely at least once met stoofvlees (beef stew). I found a decent place called Frituur Arré Patat which overlooked Basketbalplein Sint-jansvliet so you can gobble down some chips while watching the world go by. There’s plenty of places all over town though, some more upmarket and traditional and others just for a quick feed.

Charlie’s was a nice cafe for breakfast that I found while out early waiting for the Foto Museum to open. It was very quiet when I went in but I think it’s one of those places that sees street long queues to get in on a weekend.

Most people in Antwerp speak English or Flemish so I could muddle through conversations or ordering food with my basic Dutch.

Shops open late - most places I wanted to eat at didn’t even open until 10am so bear that in mind if you’re up early. Missed out on Hoffy’s, Fiskebar, Ciro’s and Oud Arsenaal. I did find a nice tucked away bar round the corner of my hotel called De Ware Jacob and further round the corner from that was Het Souke.

Cat in the window above Mitico Gelato Antwerpen.

Fietsen Den Aap cycle repair shop in Antwerp

Museums, art and design

There’s oodles of street art from giant murals to tiny tiles dotted around and the obligatory stickers on posts that Europe seems to do way better than the UK.

Aboli Bibelot is a diddy gallery that was showing some naive art when I dropped in, worth seeing just for the textured tiling and ceiling in its main room. Ibasho Gallery was on the list but missed one of its small opening times.

The photo museum FOMU is excellent. It’s relatively compact but had some great small exhibitions and a small but extensive photo book library - I spent more time there than in the exhibitions themselves. It also had the best museum cafe of all those I went to.

The MAS Museum aan de Stroom is up near the docks and crams an enormous amount of exhibits in but is nicely broken up into manageable chunks. KMSKA Royal Museum of Fine Arts has a mixture of interesting modern art (arse sculpture playing opera) and huge classical art that towers above everything (ginormous Rubens).

Couldn’t be arsed with the MOMU fashion museum in the end. The day was so nice I just ended up just wandering around town again. I missed out on the diamond district, the north east and south east parts of the city. I’ll look at them when I come back (which will definitely be happening). If I had a longer amount of time I’d try and get further out of the centre into different districts of the city, maybe even go and visit Ghent.