Step off the practice at Antwerp Central and your jaw will drop. You’ve come for a weekend to gorge on chocolate, pattern the famously sturdy native beer and go to the miraculously preserved 1565 metropolis corridor, however the very first thing you’ll see is probably the most outrageously over-the-top railway terminal in Europe.

This towering 1905 monument is a joyous rebuke to the on a regular basis utility of Brussels South station the place incoming Eurostar passengers change trains. Welcome, it says, this place is particular.

Antwerpians are famend throughout Belgium for considering they do all the things higher than anybody else, and simply now they’re going out of their technique to show it.

Town, simply two hours from St Pancras Worldwide, is alive with exercise – from the bustling Nice Market Sq. to the €100 million revamp of the Royal Museum of Effective Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) that has simply opened once more after 11 years. 

Michael Hodges visits Antwerp, which lies only a two-hour practice trip from London’s St Pancras Worldwide. Above is the town’s ‘bustling’ Nice Market Sq.

Considered one of Europe’s nice cultural establishments, the nineteenth Century neo-classical constructing is dwelling to an impressive assortment of native Outdated Masters reminiscent of Rubens and Van Dyck. However fairly than construct an extension, engineers dropped into the inside courtyards a brand new gallery – a sequence of large white bins linked by illuminated staircases.

The older galleries are actually studded with mild wells that present dizzying drops into the brightness beneath. However, paintings-wise, they nonetheless provide the unmissable hits. Search out Hans Memling’s astounding triptych, Christ Surrounded By Singing And Music-making Angels, then go to the famed Rubens room the place your mouth will drop open once more in entrance of his Adoration Of The Magi.

This large masterpiece options two of probably the most well-known camels in Western artwork wanting on at a weighty toddler Christ. As a part of the KMSKA’s reimagining, the camels have been recreated as a form of soft-fabric couch in entrance of the portray – one in all ten new installations meant to assist youngsters have interaction, it additionally permits weary adults to relaxation their legs (kmska.be/nl).

Jaw-dropping: Above is Antwerpen-Centraal, the ‘most outrageously over-the-top railway terminal in Europe’

The Rubens-inspired gentle camels on the newly-renovated Royal Museum of Effective Arts Antwerp

There’s extra audacious updating on the not too long ago opened Botanic Sanctuary, which has turned a twelfth Century monastery right into a five-star luxurious resort providing stargazing and an enormous well being spa.

Fancy extra Rubens? Wander across the metropolis centre the place a number of church buildings characteristic his work. Considered one of them, the Cathedral Of Our Woman, has artisan chocolate retailers close by the place you’ll be able to decide up ‘handjes’ – small variations of the town’s barely creepy image of a hand that was hacked from a legendary large that when terrorised the world.

Inside Our Woman you’ll discover Rubens’ Elevating Of The Cross and his Assumption Of The Virgin Mary – goodness is aware of what number of tens of thousands and thousands they’re price, however there isn’t a apparent safety. Against this, within the metropolis’s Diamond Quarter, the store home windows and vaults stuffed with valuable stones are very closely guarded by its personal police station and with highway barricades that prohibit entry and might block fast getaways.

Diamond dealing was historically a Jewish commerce, and on the fantastically pleasant Hoffy’s on Lange Kievitstraat you’ll be able to replenish on Yiddish classics reminiscent of lokshen kugel, gefilte fish and matzo balls.

As Rubens’ cumbersome figures clarify, Antwerpians like their meals, and what they actually go for is the gut-busting stuff you get at Bomma, a standard Flemish restaurant the place the plates of beef stew and cheese croquettes are available suitably Rubenesque parts.

Michael recommends strolling off hefty parts of beef stew with a stroll to the MAS metropolis museum, above 

Michael says the Palace of Justice (above) ‘may simply be the best-looking constructing in Antwerp’

If it is advisable to stroll that off, head north to the docklands and the MAS metropolis museum. Or flip south to Nieuw Zuid, an space full of latest buildings by worldwide architects which are neglected by the fantastical Palace of Justice by the British designer Richard Rogers.

Don’t inform the locals, however that may simply be the best-looking constructing in Antwerp.