Antwerp Day Trip

An Easy Brussels to Antwerp Day Trip

I flew into Brussels from London for a quick one-day layover and turned it into an Antwerp day trip. Having been to Brussels before, I knew the best place to stay - the Sheraton Brussels Airport Hotel. It sits directly across from the terminal, just thirty-nine steps per the hotel. My bag was in the room before most passengers had found the taxi rank.

The next reason for staying was the location of the train. Beneath the airport sits Brussels Airport-Zaventem station, and direct trains to Antwerp leave from there. No change in Brussels, no city traffic. All it took was a ticket, a window seat, and half an hour of flat fields and warehouses sliding past in the drizzle.

At Mechelen, the announcements dropped their French. That small switch told me I'd crossed into Flanders. Belgium changes language the way other countries change weather.

Somewhere on that ride, the pattern clicked. Antwerp, Mechelen and Leuven all grew up around a market square and a big church. Later, when the railways arrived, the stations went in at the edge of those old centres. As a result, there's no shuttle bus and no hunt for parking. You step off the train, walk out the front door, and the old city starts right there.

Antwerpen-Centraal

You should take a moment to stop and admire the railway cathedral in Antwerp. Antwerpen-Centraal looks like someone ordered a palace and a church, and the architect delivered both. Gilded towers rise from the roof. Stone lions flank a clock, and a huge arch frames the entrance. Across the top, gold letters still spell Middenstatie, the station's old name. Down at street level, though, sat a Starbucks, a pharmacy and a waffle stand under a striped awning. That mix felt about right.

Diamonds are not the only reason for an Antwerp day trip

Right outside, the diamonds start. Shop after shop lines the streets beside the station, with rings and pendants glowing against black velvet. Antwerp has traded diamonds for more than five hundred years. Today, most visitors know the city for its stones before they know it for Rubens.

The walk to Groenplaats

From the station, I set off down De Keyserlei. Within a few minutes, something stood out. Nobody was rushing me. After enough European capitals, you get used to someone half a step behind you, sighing. Antwerp works differently. People strolled and stopped to look at things. The whole city let me sightsee on my own schedule.

Along the way I passed shops and cyclists threading every gap. At one point I turned around. There sat the station's dome at the end of the street, framed by bare black trees. Oddly, it was my best view of the building all day, and I only got it by looking back.

Two painters on pedestals

Soon the street opened into Teniersplaats. Two ornate buildings face each other there across the mouth of Leysstraat, all domes, turrets, balconies and gold leaf. A McDonald's banner hung off one of them. Behind them, a construction crane swung over the rooftops.

In the middle stands David Teniers, green with age on a pink granite plinth. His plaque gives his dates in Roman numerals, 1610 to 1690. Teniers painted taverns, card games and peasants having a good time.

A few steps further, at the head of the Meir, stood Anthony van Dyck in white stone. He gazes at the sky, all curls and moustache, as if waiting for a royal commission. In real life, he got one from Charles I of England. Someone had chalked NAPOLEON across his pedestal in big uneven letters. To this day, I have no idea why.

Groenplaats and the Cathedral Tower

The Meir carried me west past department stores and more ornate façades. Then the buildings opened up. By now I knew the pattern from other old European cities. Each one has a historic square with big buildings around it and a church looming over the lot. Antwerp followed the same script, and I found that comforting.

On Groenplaats, the cathedral tower comes at you sideways. One moment you're looking at a poké bowl shop. The next, pale stone climbs over everything, with a golden clock face halfway up. At 123 metres, it's the tallest church tower in the Low Countries.

Rubens and the builders

In front of it stands Rubens, of course. His hand stretches out as if to say "come in, I've got something to show you." When I passed, a seagull sat on his head. Nearby, a tour group huddled over paper maps going soft in the rain.

Around the cathedral's flank, I found a group of bronze stonemasons set into a corner of the wall. One hauls a block. Another kneels, and a third swings a hammer.

On top of the wall, a fourth flings his arm toward the sky, as if pointing at the spire. Jef Lambeaux made them in 1906 to honour Pieter Appelmans, one of the cathedral's master builders. Of all the statues I saw that day, these were the only ones showing people at work.

Inside the Cathedral of Our Lady

Stepping inside, white stone and arches climbed toward a lantern of light. Rows of empty chairs pointed down the nave. Before this trip, I hadn't grasped one fact. This church doesn't have a Rubens. It has four.

The first hangs at the far end, above the high altar. In The Assumption of the Virgin, Mary rises on cloud and cherubs above her empty tomb. Rubens finished it in 1626, and every chair in the nave faces it.

Next, I turned left into the north transept for The Elevation of the Cross. Rubens painted it in 1610 and 1611, soon after he came home from Italy. It made his name. The triptych stands open like a book. Men strain to haul the cross upright, a dog barks at the bottom, and women weep in the left wing. You don't look at it so much as get pulled in.

Across the church, in the south transept, hangs its twin, The Descent from the Cross. Here the body comes down instead of going up. Friends reach from ladders, and a figure in red braces to catch him. Napoleon's troops carried both paintings off to Paris. Antwerp got them back in 1815.

The fourth, The Resurrection of Christ, is away for restoration for at least two years. In its spot, the cathedral has hung a photo of the triptych with its wings closed.

Paintings on steel frames

Elsewhere, paintings hang on steel frames between the pillars, so you walk through them like rooms. First came Frans Floris's Adoration of the Shepherds, all warm browns, with a lamb curled up by the manger. Beyond it hung Maerten de Vos's Wedding at Cana from 1597. A crowned bride sits at the table, servants haul jars, and Christ in red lowers one hand toward the water jugs. Up close, even the tiny figures on the vases have detail.

Underfoot, old tombstones pave the aisles. Most begin with D.O.M., and centuries of shoes have worn their names smooth.

Then, above a font on a plain white wall, I found the Descent again. A contemporary painter had rebuilt Rubens's scene in paint so thick it looked like earth. Smears, clots and one violent flash of red fill the canvas. After the polish of the old masters, it felt like someone shouting in a library.

Tombs, angels and a carved forest

Nearby lies Bishop Marius Ambrosius Capello in white marble, propped on one elbow as if resting after a long service. Isabella of Bourbon rests in bronze under heavy drapery, with two small dogs at her feet. Silvered angels lift a crown of wheat and grapes. A nineteenth-century painting shows Mary and Joseph searching the streets under the caption Maria heeft Jesus verloren, "Mary has lost Jesus."

Then came the pulpit, and I nearly laughed out loud. Michiel van der Voort carved an entire forest in oak in 1713. Trees climb the staircase, and peacocks and eagles perch in the branches. Four women representing the four continents hold the whole thing up. Beside it, a red fire extinguisher stood guard like a chaperone.

The golden man

Finally, in the transept under the stained glass, I met Jan Fabre's The Man Who Bears the Cross. A gilded figure in a trench coat tips his head back. On the palm of one hand, he balances a huge cross upright. He isn't carrying it. Instead, he's keeping it from falling, and his whole body shows the effort.

The Grote Markt

Outside, the rain had thinned to mist. I followed the cathedral's shadow around the corner into the Grote Markt.

City Hall fills one whole side of the square. Cornelis Floris designed it in the 1560s, and the date 1564 sits near the top of its tall centre gable. Coats of arms and statues crowd the front, and the flags hung limp in the damp.

Opposite, the guild houses stand shoulder to shoulder, each topped with a gilded emblem. One has an eagle and another an angel. Highest of all, Saint George on horseback spears his dragon, bright gold against the grey.

Brabo and the hand

In front of City Hall stands the fountain behind the city's name. Jef Lambeaux cast Brabo in 1887 as a Roman soldier on a heap of bronze rocks and sea creatures. His arm is cocked back, and a giant's severed hand fills his fist.

According to legend, a giant named Antigoon cut off the hand of any sailor who wouldn't pay his toll on the Scheldt. Then Brabo cut off the giant's hand and hurled it into the river. Hand werpen means "hand throwing," hence Antwerpen. Historians trace the name to something duller, probably aan 't werp, "at the wharf."

Concluding the Antwerp day trip and heading back to the hotel

By the time I walked back east, the light was going and the shop windows were glowing. Once more I passed Van Dyck and his chalk graffiti, then nodded to Teniers. De Keyserlei carried me back to the station.

This time I stopped out front and looked properly at the arch, the clock and the gold letters. Trucks rumbled past, and people hurried in with their heads down. Afterward, I walked back through the marble hall and found my platform. Barely half an hour after leaving the Grote Markt, I had a train seat.

Three out of four

Thirty-nine steps from the terminal, I was back in my hotel room with Lisbon waiting in the morning. As usual, I scrolled through the day's photos. There were the station, the painters on their pedestals, Saint George and Brabo. The Elevation, the Descent and the Assumption showed up too.

As for the Resurrection, on 27 January 2026, two weeks before my visit, the cathedral announced a major restoration of the Resurrection. Experts had found cracks in the panels and paint that no longer held to the wood. The work will take at least two years. Meanwhile, a photographic print of the triptych with its wings closed fills the empty spot. Those outer wings show angels about to open the doors.

Layover tip

If you have a layover at Brussels Airport, book the Sheraton Brussels Airport Hotel, part of Marriott Bonvoy. It sits directly across from the terminal, about two minutes on foot. After you drop your bags, head back into the terminal and down to Brussels Airport-Zaventem station on level -1. From there, direct trains for an Antwerp day trip reach Antwerpen-Centraal in about 30 minutes. The same station also gets you to central Brussels in about 11 minutes. Buy your ticket before the gates, because you'll scan it to reach the platform. Expect a small airport surcharge on the fare.