Antwerp

Antwerp has been a major centre of the global diamond trade since Jewish merchants fleeing Portugal established the industry here in the 16th century, and the district immediately around the central train station still functions as a genuinely active trading hub — most of the actual trading floors are closed to the public, operating as working commercial exchanges rather than tourist sites. DIVA, the city's museum of diamonds, jewellery and silverware, gives visitors the historical and technical context the trading floors themselves don't offer, covering how the trade actually works, from rough stone to cut diamond, without needing access to the closed exchanges.

The Rubenshuis, Peter Paul Rubens' own combined home and studio, preserves the rooms where he lived and worked for most of his career, giving a far more intimate sense of the painter than any single museum collection — the building itself, which Rubens designed, blends Flemish and Italianate architectural elements reflecting his years working in Italy. Antwerp Cathedral holds several major Rubens altarpieces still displayed in their original setting rather than removed to a museum, including The Elevation of the Cross and The Descent from the Cross, both genuinely monumental works best seen in the cathedral's own scale and light.

Antwerp's serious fashion reputation traces to 1988, when six graduates of the city's Royal Academy of Fine Arts — since known collectively as the Antwerp Six, including Dries Van Noten and Ann Demeulemeester — presented radical, deconstructed collections in London that brought international attention to Belgian design almost overnight. That legacy persists today in the Fashion District's concentration of independent boutiques and in MoMu, the city's dedicated fashion museum, which runs major rotating exhibitions rather than a single fixed collection.

Antwerp is reached from Brussels-Midi by direct train in under an hour, among Belgium's most frequent city connections, making it a comfortable day trip or an easy base for exploring further into Flanders. Antwerp Centraal station itself is worth a stop on arrival — a monumental early-20th-century train hall often described as one of the world's most beautiful railway stations. The historic centre, Diamond District and Fashion District all sit within walking distance of each other and the station.