Belgium's second city trades Bruges's postcard prettiness for something grittier and more interesting: a working port town that also happens to be a serious fashion and design capital.
Antwerp Centraal station is where you should start, not just pass through — it's a domed, marble-clad cathedral to rail travel, dubbed the 'Railway Cathedral' by locals, and worth ten minutes of gawking before you even leave the concourse. From there it's a short walk to Grote Markt, the guild-house-lined square where the city's founding legend, a giant's severed hand, is memorialised in the central fountain.
This is one of the diamond capitals of the world, and the Diamond District near the station is still lined with cutters' workshops, though most visitors will get more out of the MoMu fashion museum or wandering Kloosterstraat's antique shops than actually buying a diamond. Antwerp trained Belgium's most famous fashion designers, the so-called Antwerp Six, and the boutiques around Nationalestraat still carry that experimental edge.
Eat well and cheaply at a frituur for proper Belgian fries with a sauce you've never heard of, then find a bruin café for a Trappist beer and stoofvlees, beef stewed in dark beer until it falls apart. Two days is enough to cover the centre, the MAS museum's rooftop panorama over the Scheldt river, and at least one long, unhurried dinner — Antwerpians take their food seriously and so should you.
