| Belgium's second city, ANTWERP , fans out from the east bank of the
Scheldt about 50km north of Brussels. Many people prefer it to the
capital: though not an immediately likeable place, it has a denser
concentration of things to see, not least some fine churches and
distinguished museums - reminders of its auspicious past as centre of a
wide trading empire. It also has a more focused character: in recent
years, the city has become the effective capital of Flemish Belgium, a
lively cultural centre with a spirited nightlife. On the surface it's
not a wealthy city - the area around the docks especially is run-down
and seedy - but its diamond industry (centred behind the dusty facades
around Centraal Station) is the world's largest. On a less contemporary
note, there is also the enormous legacy of Rubens, some of whose finest
works adorn Antwerp's galleries and churches.
The City
The centre of Antwerp is Grote Markt , at the heart of which stands the
Brabo Fountain , a haphazard pile of rocks surmounted by a bronze of
Silvius Brabo, depicted flinging the hand of the giant Antigonus - who
terrorized passing ships - into the Scheldt. The north side of Grote
Markt is lined with daintily restored sixteenth-century guildhouses ,
though they are overshadowed by the Stadhuis , completed in 1566 to a
design by Cornelis Floris (tours Mon, Tues, Wed & Fri 11am, 2pm, 3pm,
Sat 2pm, 3pm; ¬0.70) and one of the most important buildings of the
Northern Renaissance. Among rooms you can visit are the Leys Room, named
after Baron Hendrik Leys, who painted the frescoes in the 1860s, and the
Wedding Room, which has a chimneypiece decorated with two caryatids by
Floris.
Southeast of Grote Markt, the Onze Lieve Vrouwe Cathedral (Mon-Fri
10am-5pm, Sat 10am-3pm, Sun 1-4pm; ¬2) is one of the finest Gothic
churches in Belgium, mostly the work of Jan and Pieter Appelmans in the
middle of the fifteenth century. The broad nave is notable primarily for
its paintings by Rubens, of which the Descent from the Cross , to the
right of the central crossing, is the most beautiful. In the ambulatory
- the second chapel down the right hand side - is a Resurrection
triptych by Rubens, painted for the tomb of his friend Jan Moretus in
1612. Moretus is also remembered by the Plantin-Moretus Museum on
Vrijdagmarkt, south of Grote Markt (Tues-Sun 10am-4.45pm; ¬3.70), housed
in the mansion of his father-in-law, the printer Christopher Plantin.
One of Antwerp's most interesting museums, it provides a marvellous
insight into how Plantin and his family conducted their business.
Highlights include a delightful seventeenth-century bookshop, the old
print room, and examples of Plantin's work. There are also sketches by
Rubens, who occasionally worked for the family as an illustrator.
Fifteen minutes' walk south (or tram #8 from Groenplaats), the Museum
voor Schone Kunsten (Tues-Sun 10am-5pm; ¬3.70) has one of the country's
finest art collections. Its early Flemish section includes two charming
works by Jan van Eyck - a tiny Madonna at the Fountain and a St Barbara
- along with works by Memling, Rogier van der Weyden and Quentin Matsys,
whose triptych of the Lamentation was commissioned for Antwerp Cathedral
in 1511. Rubens has two large rooms to himself, in which one very large
canvas stands out: the Adoration of the Magi , a beautifully human work
apparently completed in a fortnight. The museum also has a comprehensive
collection of modern Belgian art, including the paintings of Paul
Delvaux and James Ensor.
North, back towards the city centre, the Mayer van den Bergh Museum ,
Lange Gasthuisstraat 19 (Tues-Sun 10am-4.45pm; ¬3.70), contains
delightful examples of the applied arts, from tapestries to ceramics,
silverware, illuminated manuscripts and furniture, in a crowded
reconstruction of a sixteenth-century town house. There are also some
excellent paintings, including a Crucifixion triptych by Quentin Matsys
and a St Christopher by Jan Mostaert - though the museum's best-known
work is Bruegel's Dulle Griet or "Mad Meg", a misogynistic allegory in
which a woman, loaded down with possessions, stalks the gates of Hell.
It's a ten-minute walk northeast from here to the Rubenshuis at Wapper 9
(Tues-Sun 10am-4.30pm; ¬5), the former home and studio of the artist,
now restored as a museum. Unfortunately, there are only one or two of
his less distinguished paintings here, but the restoration of the rooms
is convincing; behind the house, the garden is laid out in the formal
style of his day. Rubens died in 1640 and was buried in the St
Jacobskerk , just north of here on Lange Nieuwstraat 73 (April-Oct Mon-Sat
noon-5pm; Nov-March Mon-Sat 9am-noon; ¬1.70). Rubens and his immediate
family are buried in the chapel behind the high altar, where, in one of
his last works, Our Lady Surrounded by Saints , he painted himself as St
George, his two wives as Martha and Mary, and his father as St Jerome.
Back in the centre of the town, on the waterfront at the far end of
Suikerrui from Grote Markt, is the Steen , the remaining gatehouse of
what was once an impressive medieval fortress. Today the Steen houses
the National Maritime Museum (Tues-Sun 10am-4.45pm; ¬3.70), whose
cramped rooms feature exhibits on inland navigation, ship-building and
waterfront life. The open-air section has a long line of tugs and barges
under a rickety corrugated roof. Crossing Jordaenskaai from here, it's a
couple of minutes' walk east to the impressively gabled Vleeshuis (Tues-Sun
10am-4.45pm; ¬2.50), built for the guild of butchers in 1503 and today
used to display a large but incoherent collection of applied arts -
there are several fine medieval woodcarvings and a good set of antique
musical instruments on the ground floor and period rooms up above. The
streets around here, badly damaged by wartime bombing, have been
redeveloped in a cosy pastiche of what went before, forming a stark
contrast to the dilapidated red-light area beyond. A couple of minutes'
walk along Vleeshouwersstraat on Veemarkt, the St Pauluskerk (Easter-Sept
daily 2-5pm; free) is a dignified late-Gothic church of 1517 whose most
prominent feature is the extraordinary mid-seventeenth-century carving
of the confessionals and choir stalls. Rubens' Scourging at the Pillar
is among a set of fifteen canvases hung on the north aisle wall in 1617
to illustrate the Mysteries of the Rosary. Outside, the Calvaryberg
grotto clings to the buttresses of the south transept, eerily adorned
with statues of Christ and other figures.
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