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Travel: The romantic perfection of Antwerp

Ancient Flemish city shows its age, and its style, well
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The grandly baroque Carolus Borromeus church

Tired from a flight to London and train travel on to Antwerp, I knocked over a small table lamp at the Hotel Julien. The delicate ceramic shade survived the initial fall, but when I reached to retrieve it, it gently shattered.

The Hotel Julien is located on the winding, cobble Korte Nieuwstraat, not far from Antwerp’s historic Grote Markt. A large wooden door, topped by a semi-circular fanlight, and with only a small hanging sign to identify it, opens off the streetscape.

On the ground floor, beyond a reception area presided over by a personable receptionist, is a small courtyard and gorgeously attired breakfast room. Each of the 11 oh-so-chic guest rooms is different. Ours was an attic of exposed wood beams looking over rooftops to a church steeple. Plush bedding, a potted orchid, and afore-mentioned lamps with hand-made porcelain shades no larger than my (smallish) fist, along with similar porcelain pieces in the bathroom, provided detail.

To my romantic sensibilities, the hotel was perfection — as is Antwerp itself.

This old Flemish city came out of the Second World War remarkably well, and its older parts recall the 16 th and 17 th centuries, when Antwerp experienced a Golden Age. Among its glories is the gothic Cathedral of Our Lady, whose many-pillared naves rise to vaulted ceilings painted a gold-studded white. Several Peter Paul Rubens paintings hang near the altar, including the triptych The Descent from the Cross . Side chapels radiate outward. The magnificent church is always filled with people.

On a nearby plaza, apart and lovely, stands a wonderfully baroque church (with exterior decoration by Rubens) called the Carolus Borromeus Kerk. The Grote Markt, a vast triangle of cobblestone, is encircled by late-medieval guild houses (reconstructed in the 19 th century), and the massive Renaissance-style town hall.

I met Stefan, an old acquaintance, near the plaza’s central fountain that depicts the legendary Brabo throwing a severed hand into the River Scheldt, the symbol of Antwerp. We retreated to the Café Den Engle, and over a De Koninck 1833 — a Belgian beer drunk from a glass shaped like brandy-snifter — Stefan told me that Dutch-speaking Belgians are more like the French than the Dutch — “more Bourgondie,” he said, meaning fun-loving.

These fun-loving people dress with courage — evidenced by the male fashion designer in a beautifully tailored outfit of rust and gold-coloured checks suggestive of a latter-day Pinocchio. The Mode Museum (MoMu), where he was spotted, hosts exhibits in what has become an epicentre of European fashion culture.

A restored 19 th century domed building called the Het Modepaleis is the flagship store of pioneer designer, Dries Van Noten. This is the formerly run-down St. Andreis district, hub of an avant-garde fashion movement that began in the 1980s with a group of young designers, including van Noten, known as “the Antwerp Six.”

Now, along Steenbouwersvest, Nationalestraat, Kammenstraat and Lombardenvest streets, you will find gallery-like stores — including that of Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto, his clothes almost always black — and hole-in-the-wall ateliers. Among them are rustic cafes serving dishes that are equally cutting edge.

On the Meir (a kind of promenade), stands the Rubenshuisc — a 17 th -century-inspired manor evoking the success that accompanied Rubens throughout his life.

Not far away, at the end of yet another of Antwerp’s tree-canopied plazas, nestles the Museum Plantin-Moretus, a printers and publishers premises of the 16 th century, intact and preserved, and recently named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Here is a richly decorated interior of centuries-old books and paintings, several of the oldest presses in Europe, and the remarkable story of pressmen Christopffel Plantin and son-in-law Jan Moretus. The central courtyard, built in the 1620s in the Flemish Renaissance style, is renowned (in knowing circles) worldwide.

Similarly spectacular is the Centraal Station, an enormous masterpiece of glass and steel built in the late 19 th century. Mostly Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews have long lived in this neighbourhood and operate today — along the well-fortified Hovenierstraat — four diamond exchanges. Here, stones valued at $25 billion are traded annually.

At the Diamond Museum, you’ll learn about an extraction industry that now includes Canada among important producers, and see cutters and polishers at work. And after visiting the gallery of antique and contemporary jewelry, you’ll see diamonds in a new light. Across the street, along the Pelikaanstraat, Jews from Georgia run a non-stop parade of diamond retail outlets.

Antwerp also boasts an avenue called Cogels Osylei — sometimes referred to as the street of the “white palaces” for its four mansions adorned with baroque plasterwork. Yet these few blocks includes mansions built at the end of the 19 th century in architectural art nouveau, neo-Renaissance, neo-Gothic and neo-Byzantine styles.

Back in the oldest precincts, shrines of the Virgin Mary hang on many of the corner buildings, adding an irrefutable beauty and reminders of the city’s historic and fierce Catholicity. While always expressions of piety, many of these shrines are works of art, and combined with surrounding trendiness, add to the city’s considerable frisson.

Antwerp sits on the River Scheldt, at the end of a long estuary running through The Netherlands from the North Sea. Upstream, extending for 40 kilometres, is one of the largest container ports in Europe. A life-long Antwerpian, Stefan had unfurled a map that shows the city of half a million people dwarfed by this vast harbour-dock complex that moves more than 100 million metric tons of cargo annually.

While much of the inner city’s port was demolished in the 19 th century, traces, like a series of decorative sheds, remain. And at the end of a promenade, perched out over the Scheldt, the upscale Zuiderterras café offers fine alfresco dining.

Back at the Julien Hotel (rooms from about $265), I was charged 50 Euro ($80) for the broken shade. I didn’t begrudge the penalty one bit. The Julien turned out to be a serene and gracious retreat. And best of all, in my attic room, I heard the regular chiming of cathedral bells — more evidence that age-old practices survive in modern Antwerp.

Tourism Antwerp: www.antwerpen.be

Hotel Julien: www.hotel-julien.com