Antwerp
This delightfully indulgent 1611 mansion was built as a home and studio for celebrated painter Pieter Paul Rubens. It was rescued from ruins in 1937 and…
Must-see attractions in Northeast Belgium
Antwerp
Belgium’s finest Gothic cathedral was 169 years in the making (1352–1521). Wherever you wander in Antwerp, its gracious, 123m-high spire has a habit of…
Antwerp
The medieval building and 1622 courtyard garden alone would be worth a visit, but it's the world's oldest printing press, priceless manuscripts and…
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Leuven
Far and away Leuven’s most iconic sight, the incredible 15th-century stadhuis is a late-Gothic architectural wedding cake flamboyantly overloaded with…
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Northeast Belgium
This soaring, Gothic-vaulted cathedral features a 1723 monumental pulpit, a 1630 Van Dyck crucifixion scene in the south transept, and dozens more fine…
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Northeast Belgium
One of Europe’s largest open-air museums, Bokrijk Openluchtmuseum offers a nostalgic look at Flanders’ past, with over 100 old buildings originally…
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Leuven
This idyllic, village-like corner of Leuven would make an ideal film set for a medieval drama. The lantern-lit cobbled streets are lined with step-gabled…
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Northeast Belgium
Centred on a 14th-century church and sporting a few artists’ studio-galleries, this picturesque village-within-a-village is a five-street grid of lovely…
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Antwerp
Styled as a 16th-century town house, this superb place was actually constructed in 1904 as one of the first museums in the world built around a single…
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Northeast Belgium
Hidden behind big wooden gates, one of Belgium’s loveliest begijnhoven loops round a long, narrow garden set with a grotto, church and religious statues…
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Northeast Belgium
Originally founded in 1258, this Unesco site is one of Belgium’s prettiest 'street' begijnhoven, a picture-perfect grid of cobbled lanes lined with…
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Northeast Belgium
With 7000 sq metres of dolls, teddies, toys, games and other pastimes, the wonderful Speelgoedmuseum has lots to keep the kids busy. Meanwhile, adults can…
Antwerp
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…
Antwerp
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…
Antwerp
Combining the impressive 17th-century houses of artist Frans Snijders and of Antwerp lawyer, mayor and Rubens-patron Nicolaas Rockox, this recently…
Antwerp
As is the case with every great Flemish city, Antwerp’s medieval heart is a classic Grote Markt (market square). Here the triangular, pedestrianised space…
Antwerp
Antwerp’s historic brewery is both a temple to the city’s favourite beer and an evocative example of early-20th-century industrial architecture. Self…
Antwerp
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…
Antwerp
M HKA is considered to be one of Belgium's best contemporary galleries. Its exhibitions focus on work produced since the 1970s by both Belgian and…
Antwerp
With its neo-Gothic facade, vast main hall and splendidly proportioned dome, the 1905 Antwerpen-Centraal building has been rated as one of the five most…
Antwerp
Closed for renovation until late 2020, Antwerp's fashion museum has a rich avant-garde collection and typically produces exhibitions highlighting the…
Antwerp
Four matching corner houses face off across a Zurenborg junction, with glaze-brick exteriors enlivened by fine mosaic work and triangular protruding box…
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Leuven
At Leuven's heart is this soaring Brabantine-Gothic church (1425) whose remarkable wooden pulpit is fashioned like twin palm trees that drip with cherubs…
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Northeast Belgium
Some 12km northwest of Mechelen, this haunting, moated prison-fort was built in 1906. However, its use as a notorious Nazi internment camp in WWII is the…
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Leuven
Dominating Monseigneur Ladeuzeplein, this imposingly grand Flemish Renaissance–style palace features a soaring Scandinavian-style brick tower topped with…
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Leuven
This state-of-the-art gallery houses a priceless collection of 15th- to 18th-century religious works, fascinating Leuven-relevant historical objects and…
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Northeast Belgium
Lier’s most iconic monument is the photogenic Zimmertoren, a partly 14th-century tower incorporating a fanciful 1930 timepiece that’s eccentrically…
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Northeast Belgium
Undergoing a total renovation at the time of research, this well-endowed provincial art gallery sits behind a classic step-gabled facade and, when…
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Northeast Belgium
Partly dating to the 13th century, St-Leonarduskerk is topped with a fanciful tower reminiscent of a galleon’s crow’s nest. Miraculously, given Zoutleeuw…
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Northeast Belgium
Sternly clad in battleship-grey stone, this very spacious modern museum devotes two well-crafted floors to the evolution of human culture then, after a…
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Northeast Belgium
This central church mostly dates from the 14th to 16th centuries, with a finely proportioned stone tower that dominates Tongeren’s neatly cafe-lined Grote…
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Northeast Belgium
This unrefined seven-storey tower is the most significant remnant of the former St-Trudo abbey church, dating partly from the 11th century but left as a…
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Northeast Belgium
This 1609 basilica has a domed roof distinctively dotted with gilded seven-pointed stars that's visible for miles as you approach from the west. The…
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Antwerp
This attractive historic building was an orphanage and child refuge from 1553 to 1882 and houses some fascinating objects from this time, along with a…
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Northeast Belgium
The 18th-century Dossin Barracks were used by the Nazis as a WWII deportation centre. Some 25,834 victims (mainly Jewish, 352 Roma) were sent in 28…
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Northeast Belgium
Hasselt has been at the centre of the jenever (gin) industry since the 17th century, and this beautifully restored 19th-century distillery houses a…
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Northeast Belgium
When Antwerp's vast Kanaldok (port extension) was built in the 1960s, seven villages were bulldozed to make space. Of most, just an isolated church tower…
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Northeast Belgium
Opposite St-Leonarduskerk, the old town hall building is a 19th-century faux-medieval delight with majestic pre-Raphaelite murals in the ground-floor hall…
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Antwerp
Presiding over the vast Grote Markt, the 1565 stadhuis has a palatial facade blending Flemish and Italian styles in an innovative departure from the…
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Antwerp
The tomb of Rubens is the reason most visitors come to St-Jacobskerk. Located in a small chapel behind the high altar, the tomb is adorned with Our Lady…
