Antwerp’S Cathedral of Our Lady Rises 123 Metres High – Making It the Tallest in the Low Countries

The tower of Antwerp’s Cathedral of Our Lady rises 123 metres high – making it the tallest in the Low Countries On Antwerp’s peaceful left bank, Jona de The Perfect Weekend BeuckeleerThe points out the landmarkstour of the city’s skyline across the river: the slender cathedral, the Art Deco glamour of Europe’s ANTWERP first skyscraper, the Gothic church of St Paul’s. He’s leading the Marnix bike tour, one of four Antwerp is Belgium’s second city, and its best-kept secret. Once a Renaissance offered by Cyclant, the company he runs with his friend and fellow Antwerp native Nicolas. metropolis, today this fashion and design centre combines historic character Teachers by trade, they give an entertaining inside track on storied spots and less-pedalled with cutting-edge creativity. Head out on two wheels, delve into the past places alike. On Marnix, for example, they take participants through the old town, with its and sample local flavours on a weekend exploring Flanders’ unofficial capital medieval houses and riverside castle, and also the left bank and docklands. At Park Spoor l WORDS SOPHIE MCGRATH @sophielmcgrath PHOTOGRAPHS JONATHAN STOKES @StokesJon Noord, reclaimed rail tracks lead beside grassy lawns and street art, while in multicultural Borgerhout, the colourful arches of Chinatown frame the grand domes of Antwerpen-Centraal station. Antwerp is a walkable city, but to see some of its most interesting corners it’s best to make like the Belgians and saddle up. l Marnix tour from £13; cyclant.com TRAVEL ESSENTIALS Eurostar services from London start at £83 return (incl local rail transfer from Brussels). The Antwerp City Card admits you to attractions such as the cathedral and Rubens House, plus gives you free use of public transport and cheap bike hire (£18 for 24hrs, £23 for 48hrs; for details and more ideas, see visitantwerpen.be). NIK NEVES MAP ILLUSTRATION: 80 Lonely Planet Traveller November 2015 November 2015 Lonely Planet Traveller 81 PERFECT WEEKEND ANTWERP The During the 16th and 17th centuries,museum Antwerp was the largest city north of the Alps. A commercial powerhouse, it grew rich on the spoils of the Spanish Empire, and people came from far and wide to make their fortune. One of them was Christopher Plantin, a printing Above 16th-century pioneer whose home and headquarters lives type blocks from on as the one-of-a-kind Museum Plantin- Museum Plantin- Moretus. A warren of beautifully preserved Moretus’s collection, rooms spread around a peaceful medieval which also includes garden, it’s the only museum in the world that’s musical notes and the listed as a World Heritage site by Unesco – Hebrew alphabet. Below The medieval although it still feels like Plantin could walk in garden at the heart of at any moment. The smell of musty books and the museum, which has wood polish hangs in the air of his creaking, been open to the public timber-beamed home, its walls lined with since 1877 tapestries and gilded leather wallpaper. Treasures include early maps, a Gutenberg Bible and paintings by his friend Rubens – while in the printing quarters, the collection is rarer still. Here, there are stacks of inky letters up to the ceiling, original font sets and, in the workshop where printers once toiled from dawn until dusk, Above Details from the oldest printing presses in the world. paintings by Rubens l Admission £6; museumplantinmoretus.be feature across Hotel O’s five types of room. Inset The hotel’s façade Above The coffee shop, is typical of the old complete with bean town, whose squares Above Mannequins roaster, at Het Bos, are lined with merchant stand in the windows which also has a gig and guild houses of 46 Kloosterstraat, venue, theatre and a retro shopping den. exhibition spaces. Below The street’s TheEggs sizzle in the tiny kitchen breakfast where Charlotte Below Sunny side up The Kloosterstraat is not an especially long shops sell everything Koopman and Hadas Cna’ani are cooking, their eggs with tomato, street, but a walk along it can easily last for from vintage toys to honey and oregano The walk designer homeware movements fast and deliberate as they stir, pour hours. Linking the old town with the arty and fry food for the eclectic crowd settling at Zuid district, it’s lined with antique and tables. With its concrete columns and metallic It’s just turned three, and a tuneful chatter of design shops selling a staggering inventory pipes, the first floor of warehouse-turned-arts- bellsThe drifts in through the openhotel doors of Hotel of hebbedingetjes (things you want but complex Het Bos is an industrial setting for a O Kathedral. Set over two historic townhouses, don’t need). Hunting among these is a resolutely home-spun occasion: the Otark the design hotel has pride of place right opposite favourite Antwerp pasttime, especially on Sunday breakfast club. Today, there’s warm Antwerp’s medieval Cathedral of Our Lady, a Sundays. Come afternoon, the street Georgian flatbreads heaped with hummus, Gothic masterpiece whose tower soars dizzily buzzes with locals strolling artichoke and dukkah (an Egyptian spice mix); above the old town. Most of the 37 rooms have pavements heaped with aubergine jam with Romanian sheep’s cheese; views, some with window seats to gaze out mannequins, suits of armour and fried eggs with tomatoes, honey and from, others have skylights that frame the spire. and second-hand books. The oregano. There’s also ice cream: fig Inside, they pay homage to another Antwerp variety is huge: junk grottoes leaf, salted butter caramel, roasted icon – the artist Rubens, with details from his like Tante Brocante rub strawberry with white miso. Ice paintings spread across walls and ceilings, their shoulders with dealers cream might seem an unusual rich colours contrasting with the mellow blacks selling ancient Egyptian choice for breakfast, but as and golds of burnished walls, bathrooms and parchment or Congolese morning turns to afternoon beds. Breakfast is held downstairs, in a softly lit swords. For the best pick of and an increasingly hungover area lined with vintage radios; at night, this local talent, time your visit crowd spills in, nobody needs segues into a bar serving cocktails and local with the monthly Market for convincing. With food this beers. But Hotel O Kathedral is also a relaxing Tomorrow, which hosts young good, it’s only right that hangout during the day – grab one of the tables makers, as well as DJs and a breakfast is a three-course meal. on the pavement outside and watch the world cocktail truck. l Breakfast dishes from £1.80; pass by in the cathedral square. l kloosterstraat.com otarkproductions.blogspot.co.uk l Rooms from £65; hotelokathedral.com 82 Lonely Planet Traveller November 2015 November 2015 Lonely Planet Traveller 83 PERFECT WEEKEND ANTWERP Inset The De Belgium has no shortage of great beers, and Koninck brewery in Antwerp there’s one that’s got to be on the tour includes a The beer menu: De Koninck. A symbol of the city, this virtual spin round Antwerp. malty, mahogany-coloured brew was the Below De first beer to be made here and, while some Koninck has microbrews are just emerging, is now the last to notes of caramel be produced in significant quantities locally. The and toffee and is recently revamped De Koninck brewery makes served in a an unbeatable introduction, with a new tour bolleke (‘bolle’ means round) that puts the typical shuffle round a yeasty brewing floor to shame. A hands-on look at the beer’s history and production, it includes a primer on beer glasses held beneath a ceiling glittering with them, a delivery van that hurtles on a virtual tour of the city, and a last-chance saloon with a self-playing piano. The final stop is, happily, the bar, where visitors can sample De Koninck in its unique glass – the chalice-like bolleke – and its two sister beers, Wild Jo and the potent Triple D’Anvers. If this all gives you the urge for an accompanying snack, in-house artisan producers are on hand to advise on pairing cheese, meat and chocolate with Belgian beers. Step into the Paleis op Meir and you’ll find a l Tour with tasting £9; placeThe as lavish as you’d expectchocolate from a haunt of dekoninck.be Head up one of Antwerp’s taller buildings at night Belgian kings and Napoleon Bonaparte: gilded Theand you’ll see lights glitteringrestaurant for miles – the ceilings, paintings and glittering chandeliers – tell-tale signs of Europe’s second-largest port, plus a lot of chocolate. This is the unusual home sprawling beside the River Scheldt as it curves out of The Chocolate Line, the second outpost of to the North Sea. The city’s maritime heritage is Bruges-based ‘shockolatier’ and tireless everywhere in Het Eilandje, the once-decrepit experimenter Dominique de Persoone. His docklands whose buildings now house cool clubs, inventions – all made on-site, in a kitchen with bars and restaurants like Het Pomphuis. Set in a 19th-century stove – are a fever dream of a grand ’20s pumping house with its original outlandish flavours like wasabi, lavender, and machinery intact, the towering space is packed Earl Grey; one chocolate even comes with a with diners ensconced in plush armchairs, their tequila-filled syringe. And they taste good: Above The ornate conversations and clinking cutlery echoing up ‘Miss Piggy’ somehow manages to capture the interior of the Paleis to the glass roof above. They tuck into artfully flavour and crunch of bacon, while a sundried op Meir, home of presented, seasonal dishes: the likes of goose liver The Chocolate Line.

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