Antwerp

Antwerp has been connected to the Netherlands by rail since 1854. In the early days, trains wriggled through the city centre at street level, which was not ideal. Indeed, steam locomotives caused a lot of noise and odour during their passage.

The unfinished concrete carcass of a ghost hotel has been receiving its first visitors since early 2025 after more than half a century of vacancy and decay.

You will find relics of the former railway yard Spoor Oost along the ring track around Antwerp.

For almost a century, the Veuve Van Enschodt bridge over the Rupel was the only connection between the Antwerp municipalities of Klein Willebroek and Boom.

The Norbertines of Tongerlo Abbey erected a moated castle on the site where noble lords and ladies had resided since 1271.

In Antwerp, dozens of kilometres of trenches, parapets and ramparts lie hidden under a thick crust of branches and leaves.

Together with Liège, Antwerp was home to the 1930 World's Exposition, a double exhibition that the Bureau International des Expositions did not recognise.

To defend the nation against foreign attacks, a series of forts were built around Antwerp, Liège and Namur from the end of the nineteenth century. For example, the Defense Line of Antwerp consisted of sixteen larger strongholds in a wide circle around the city, including Fort Breendonk.

The first American oil trickled into Europe via the port of Antwerp in 1863. The Antwerp petroleum industry established itself between the South and Hoboken.

About ten harbour cranes gather along the banks of the Scheldekaai in Antwerp, forming the largest (museum) collection of harbour cranes in the world.