Sign in with Facebook"Antwerp is underrated tourist destination in BE" Antwerp by jexelot
Antwerp Travel Guide: 2,853 reviews and 7,112 photos
Few places tangle the old and the new quite so enchantingly. Here eclectic Art Nouveau mansions stare back at Neo-Renaissance villas, and medieval castles provide a magical backdrop for the city's myriad bars and cafes.
The obligatory Antwerpian activities include smearing your face with pralines, staining your chin with a glass of potent oude jenever, stuffing your mouth with filleted herring, discovering how good chips can really be and pressing your nose to the diamond merchants' windows.
One of the best of all the local pursuits is to sit in at least one (but preferably several dozen) of the city's many bars or brown cafes (small pubs) and bend your elbow until you determine which of Belgium's myriad outstanding beers is the finest.
On the Grote Markt, or main square, Brabo welcomes you into the atmosphere of a world city from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The proud guild houses with their stepped gables and gold emblematic figures make sure of that; examples of high-rise building in the days of yore, intended to flaunt the power and wealth of the guilds. A number of those buildings are nineteenth-century reconstructions based on old paintings of the Grote Markt of which there are many. So like Brabo, the guild houses reflect a romantic predilection for a glorious past of prosperity and freedom. Today the Grote Markt is still a lively centre with numerous convivial indoor and outdoor cafés and restaurants.
The star attraction is of course the City Hall. It was constructed between 1561 and 1565 under the direction of the architect Cornelis II Floris de Vriendt and with the cooperation of (amongst others) the Italian Nicolo Scarini - hence the 'Flemish-Italian renaissance style', otherwise called the 'Floris style', a sensational new departure for the sixteenth-century Netherlands and it served as a model as far afield as Scandinavia.
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Comments (2)
A very nice introduction! It is indeed underrated and many attractions are not known to the general tourist.
You're so right about Antwerp being underrated. Good writing about my favourite city in Belgium.