Saturday
Morning
With a Rubens at every turn and fashion stitched into its DNA, Antwerp blends northern European discipline with a saucy sea air. Circled by Renaissance houses built during the city’s golden age, the 14th-century Cathedral of Our Lady both orientates you and allows you to make your first acquaintance with Rubens — his altarpieces here are lofty, religious and titillating in equal measure (£4.50; dekathedraal.be)
A few minutes’ walk away, the Rockoxhuis, built in the 17th century, is a chocolate box of treats for art lovers — especially now it’s stuffed with works from the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, which is being renovated. It’s accessorised with creaking floorboards and walls painted in rich crimsons and blues, and you can get close enough to the Brueghels, Van Dycks and Jean Fouquets to check for stubble (£6; rockoxhuis.be).
Afternoon
We’re in Belgium, where the monks were doing clever things with beer centuries before Brooklyn’s microbreweries, so it would be a sin not to indulge. Once a monastery, then a church boarding school, De Groote Witte Arend is devoted to the worship of beer and carb-loading. Pay a tenner for rib-sticking stoemp — a paean to root vegetables. A big bottle of Chimay Grande Réserve can cost the same, but you’ll find more than 100 beers at about £3 (degrootewittearend.be).
It’s designer fashion, rather than hunting for an Old Master, that drives the city’s shopping fever these days. At the end of the 1980s, the Antwerp Six — Ann Demeulemeester and Dries Van Noten were a third of them — led Europe out of the decade’s worst fashion excesses with taut tailoring and a palette of black, grey, white and a touch more black. The ModeMuseum, on Nationalestraat, gives you a twirl around the world of couture (£6; momu.be). Afterwards, head a couple of doors down to the glorious fin de siècle building that is the Modepaleis, Dries Van Noten’s HQ, full of austerity-style clothing tickled up with silver and velvets (driesvannoten.be). Up-and-coming designers have set up shop on the same street — look out for Cedric Jacquemyn and Nico Uytterhaegen at Recollection (therecollection.com). If you see something, buy it right away — the opportunities for Sunday shopping are limited.
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Antwerp is the diamond capital of the world. If you’re just after fat rocks, head to Hoveniersstraat, but for a superior jewellery selection, pay a visit to
Graanmarkt 13, an 18th-century warehouse with a tautly edited boutique and art gallery. Pieces by the local star Sandra Van der Wildt will set you back a few hundred pounds (graanmarkt13.be).
Evening
We’re staying at Graanmarkt 13 for dinner — there’s a restaurant downstairs. Yes, precision foaming is involved, but the chef, Seppe Nobels, dispenses with culinary in-jokes. It’s packed with discerning Antwerpians (and this is a discerning city), so book at least a month ahead for the three-course, £29 evening meal, a bargain when such artful things are done to scallops and cod.
Sated, swing by the cathedral and seek out the speakeasy-style Dogma Cocktails, on Wijngaardstraat (drinks about £10; dogmacocktails.be).
Sunday
Morning
Head to Kloosterstraat, where there are any number of attractive little cafes filled with vintage furniture and AeroPress coffee makers — breakfast will cost about £10 at Dansing Chocola. Half of Antwerp will be doing the same thing, before hunting through second-hand shops and flea markets. At Christiaensen & Christiaensen, on Steenhouwersvest, you can still buy a cool 1960s glass vase for £10 (christiaensen-christiaensen.be).
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Nip into the Museum Plantin-Moretus, on Vrijdagmarkt. In the 16th century, this mansion was the Google Campus of its age, with a near monopoly on Bible printing, and owners who created a house full of art in the process (£6; museumplantinmoretus.be).
Afternoon
Just around the corner, De Kleine Zavel is an inviting brasserie that mines Flemish and French traditions to deliver a menu strong on steak and patisserie, in tapas-style portions (dishes about £10; dekleinezavel.be).
If you need a break from the ruffs and pomp of the golden age, head north to the Red Star Line Museum, a very modern institution devoted to the shipping company, with buttons to push and lives digitally documented. Between 1873 and 1935, thousands of Europe’s huddled masses — including Einstein and Irving Berlin — came to Antwerp, all with one aim: to pass through a degrading fumigation so they could be crammed into steerage in the hope of making it across to Ellis Island (£6; redstarline.be).
Walk back via St Paul’s Church, on Veemarktkade, for another binge on Rubens and his one-time pupil Van Dyck (free; sint-paulusparochie.be). When a fire broke out at the church in 1968, the local prostitutes abandoned their clients to help rescue the paintings.
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Back in the Meir district, don’t expect the Rubenshuis to be an exercise in modesty. The painter’s mansion is modelled on an Italian palazzo, with room enough for eight kids and an army of assistants. From March 28 to June 28, portraits of Rubens’s family will be on display (£6; rubenshuis.be).
Evening
Give in to the siren call of the sea at the tiny Maritime. There might be a lobster over the door, but all of Antwerp comes here for mussels and chips (about £20; maritime.be). Be sure to book.
An aperitif? Head back to the cathedral. In its shadow lies the Het Elfde Gebod pub, rammed with religious iconography and more types of beer than there are saints in heaven (beers from £3; hetelfdegebod.eu).
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Where to stay
The Hotel O Sud has groovy rooms a short walk from Nationalestraat (doubles from £142, B&B, hotelhotelo.com). Hotel Julien, fashioned from two 16th-century buildings next to the cathedral, is well run, with a rooftop bar (doubles from £136, B&B, hotel-julien.com).
Getting there
Sarah Turner travelled as a guest of Visit Flanders (visitflanders.com) and Great Rail Journeys, which has two nights at the Hotel O Sud from £299pp, including rail travel from London (01904 527180, greatrail.com). Trains take about three hours, with a change in Brussels. CityJet flies to Antwerp from London City.