Antwerp Port

Antwerp


Beautiful it ain’t. But its sheer jaw-dropping scale makes driving through the world's fourth-largest port complex an unforgettable experience.

A surreal industrial-age maze of cranes, loading yards, container stacks, docks, pipes, rail lines, warehouses and petrochemical refineries stretches to the Dutch border, with everything neatly spaced amid the remnants of grassy polder fields.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Antwerp attractions

1. Red Star Line Museum

0.59 MILES

Over two million passengers sailed from Antwerp on Red Star Line ships between 1873 and 1934, the great majority of them immigrants bound for America…

2. MAS

0.87 MILES

Opened in 2011, MAS is a 10-storey complex that redefines the idea of a museum-gallery. Floors are designed around big-idea themes using a barrage of…

3. St-Pauluskerk

1.21 MILES

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…

4. Keizerskapel

1.34 MILES

Built in 1512 for the cloth-cutters' guild, this underrated little chapel honouring St Anne was given a major Gothic rebuild in the mid-17th century, from…

5. Snijder-Rockoxhuis

1.34 MILES

Combining the impressive 17th-century houses of artist Frans Snijders and of Antwerp lawyer, mayor and Rubens-patron Nicolaas Rockox, this recently…

6. Het Steen

1.35 MILES

On a riverside knoll, Het Steen is a dinky but photogenic castle dating from 1200 and occupying the site of Antwerp’s original Gallo-Roman settlement…

7. Statue of Lange Wapper

1.37 MILES

Outside Het Steen castle is a humorous statue of Lange Wapper, a tall folkloric ‘peeping Tom’ figure showing off his codpiece to two diminutive onlookers.

8. St-Carolus-Borromeuskerk

1.4 MILES

Rubens turned interior designer as part of the team that created this superb 1621 baroque church, designed to give worshippers a very visceral foretaste…