Antwerp Museum Route

This culture and history-rich city walk takes you through old Antwerp. You walk through the districts of Meir and Sint-Andries on the right bank of the Scheldt. Enough opportunity to have a picnic or a drink on the banks of one of the largest rivers in Belgium. Here you will also find Het Steen. The original version of this castle was built between 1200 and 1225, making it the oldest preserved building in Antwerp, although it has undergone some modifications over the centuries. According to Antwerp tradition, the giants Druon Antigoon and Lange Wapper once lived in Het Steen. Since 1963 there has been a statue of the Lange Wapper, who also appears in the stories of Suske en Wiske, at the entrance to Het Steen. While walking, you will run out of time and eyes to take in all the beautiful old historic buildings. You will also pass a number of museums. For example, the Museum aan de Stroom, which opened in 2011, is located at the old harbour. In this fairly modern building, the permanent exhibition revolves around the connection of the port city of Antwerp with the rest of the world. Museum Eugeen van Mieghem sheds light on the life and works of the Antwerp port artist of the same name, who lived from 1875 to 1930. Van Mieghem grew up in the harbor and experienced the hard life up close, partly because his father ran a popular cafe. Van Mieghem therefore became the artist of the typical port people: the builders, the sack makers, emigrants, skippers and vagabonds. Museum Het Vleeshuis is not about butchers, as the name might suggest. The museum highlights centuries of sound, music and dance in Antwerp. Do not expect a classical instrument museum, but a lively journey to the world behind the music! You will become acquainted with instruments, prints, manuscripts, books, paintings and models. They tell the story of carillonneurs, opera singers, music in the church or indoors and in dance halls after 1800. There are reconstructions of a bell foundry and a workshop for brass instruments. Incidentally, the name of the museum does refer to the butcher's history. Until after the French Revolution, this was the home of the Antwerp butchers, the oldest guild in the city. The current building is more than 500 years old and therefore already an attraction in itself. In the Plantin-Moretus Museum, you can get to know the printer family of the same name. There was already a printing house here in the sixteenth century. The building developed into a meeting place for scholars and humanists such as Simon Stevin. The museum was founded in 1877 and in 2005 was the first museum ever to be listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO for its exceptionally well-preserved historic printing house. Other museums you pass include Het Maagdenhuis, Het Fotomuseum, The Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (MHKA) and the Bormshuis, a museum about the Flemish Movement.