Things to Do in Antwerp
Antwerp fits in a weekend and still sends you home with a list of things you did not get to. The city is roughly two kilometres across at the point where it matters, the trams run every few minutes, and almost everything on this page is within half an hour of Antwerp Central Station on foot or by tram.
This is a guide to what is worth your time, grouped by the kind of day you feel like having.
Start with the station itself
Most guides put Antwerp Central Station at the end. Start there instead, because you are standing in it anyway.
The building opened in 1905, designed by Louis Delacenserie, and it is regularly named one of the most beautiful railway stations in the world. Four levels of platforms sit under a glass and iron train shed, and the ticket hall is a stone dome with marble in more than twenty kinds of stone. Walk up to the top level before you leave. It takes four minutes and it sets the tone for the rest of the city.
Directly next door is Antwerp Zoo, opened in 1843 and one of the oldest zoos in the world. The art deco buildings are listed monuments in their own right.
The classics, in the order that makes sense
Cathedral of Our Lady
The tallest church tower in the Low Countries, and inside it four altarpieces by Peter Paul Rubens, including The Raising of the Cross and The Descent from the Cross. You do not need to care about Baroque painting to feel the scale of them. Allow an hour.
KMSKA, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts
Reopened in 2022 after eleven years of renovation, with a white sculpted extension dropped into the middle of the old building. Rubens, Van Dyck, Ensor, Fouquet. The Ensor collection is the largest anywhere. Allow two to three hours, or one if you are strict with yourself.
Plantin-Moretus Museum
A UNESCO World Heritage site and the only museum in the world built around a printing works. The two oldest surviving printing presses stand in the room where they were used. The courtyard alone is worth the entry.
Rubenshuis
Worth knowing before you plan your day: the artist's house itself is closed for restoration and will not reopen before 2030 at the earliest, but the garden, the Rubens Experience and the library are open, through the new entrance at Hopland 13. The Rubens Experience, the garden and the library are open. If Rubens is the reason you came, the cathedral and the KMSKA are where the paintings are.
For a second day, or a different mood
MAS, Museum aan de Stroom, in the Eilandje docklands, tells the story of the city and the port across ten floors of red Indian sandstone. The rooftop panorama is free, no ticket needed, and gives you the whole river. It is closed on Mondays.
MoMu, the fashion museum, exists because Antwerp exists in fashion. The Antwerp Six came out of the academy around the corner.
Red Star Line Museum, in the sheds where two million people boarded ships to America, including Irving Berlin and Einstein.
Middelheim Museum, an open-air sculpture park south of the centre, free to enter and closed on Mondays. Rodin, Moore, and a lot of contemporary work in a park you can lie down in.
Sint-Annatunnel, the pedestrian tunnel under the Scheldt from 1933, with its original wooden escalators. Six hundred metres of tiled tube, and the view back at the skyline from the far bank.
The part most visitors miss
Zurenborg is a six minute walk from Antwerp Central Station and almost nobody goes. In the 1890s a group of developers built an entire district of Art Nouveau, neo-Gothic and neo-Renaissance townhouses for the Antwerp middle class, and it survived.
The Cogels-Osylei is the street everyone photographs. Look for De Zonnebloem, with its sunflower facade, and the four houses named after the seasons. Then walk on to the Waterloostraat and the Transvaalstraat, which are quieter and just as good.
Two squares anchor the neighbourhood. Dageraadplaats is where Zurenborg actually lives: cafes with terraces, a playground, a market on Thursday morning. Draakplaats is smaller and calmer, with a tram stop and a good place to sit.
Between the Minkelersstraat and the Krugerstraat there is a 4,000 square metre graffiti wall, at its best during the Meeting of Styles festival.
Eating and drinking
Antwerp takes food seriously without making a performance of it. De Koninck brews in the city and its brewery site has become a food hall. Chocolate Nation is in the station district and is exactly what it sounds like.
At VIA Antwerp, MEA serves modern Eastern Mediterranean food by chef Omri McNabb, who cooked at The Palomar in London, with cocktails by Jonathan Scheerlinck. Breakfast from seven, dinner in the evening, and the bar runs late.
How long do you need
One day. Station, cathedral, Grote Markt, Het Steen, lunch, KMSKA or Plantin-Moretus, dinner.
A weekend. Add Zurenborg on the second morning, the MAS and the Eilandje in the afternoon, and leave an evening free for whatever the city puts in front of you.
Longer. Middelheim, the Sint-Annatunnel, Berchem, and a day trip to Ghent, about an hour by train, or Bruges, about an hour and a half.
Where to stay while you do it
VIA Antwerp is a four-star boutique hotel a six minute walk from Antwerp Central Station, in Zurenborg. The walk into the city takes a few minutes and runs past the Art Nouveau facades rather than along a main road. Seven room types, an interior by Merav Bustan Design Studio, and MEA downstairs. Best Hotel Design of the Year at the Independent Hotel Show in Amsterdam, April 2026.
