Jazz impressions of Antwerpen (and other assorted places)
The SNCF has plastered the train windows with corny stickers saying “let yourself dream”, “#nofilter” and “seat with a view”. Everybody awake is heads-down in their phone.
Everything around here used to be the deepest and most vibrant shade of forest green. Now it’s a dusty and desolate shade of husk yellow. And yet they still vote against the planet.
First, there are the iron arches and glass vault of the 185-metre-long and 44-metre-high train shed, designed by engineer Clément Van Bogaert. Then, there’s the 75-metre-high glass dome soaring above the marble-clad neo-baroque station designed by Louis Delacenserie. As a bonus, there’s the damage from a V-2 rocket impact that’s left a kink in the roof. Finally, there’s the tunnel that was excavated beneath the city to convert the station from a terminus to a through station, complete with two levels of concrete concourses that seem to defy gravity. Antwerpen-Centraal has to be the most beautiful railway station i’ve ever seen.
By stark contrast, Antwerpen’s pre-metro is a drab and musty affair. It’s nothing more than an underground tram, but thanks to its broken ticket machines, unused stations and dark décor, it has an undeniably spooky quality.
Did i manage to manifest a free matcha latte, or is Emmi’s marketing so good that i craved one before even seeing its promotional cart on the street ahead?
When there are no cars, you can hear people. Instead of the menacing roar of our environment’s demise, you can hear the hopeful pulse of our civilization’s persistence. Who knew? One is slightly more grating than the other. Cities aren’t loud; cars are.
Stad Leest is a well-known bookstore-cum-café in the heart of Antwerpen, but since 2021, it’s had a second location just around the corner for all things stationery and homeware. It stocks Atoma, Kaweco, Leuchtturm and Moleskine, but also — and more importantly for me — Blackwing, Midori and Penco. I might have gone there twice. I might have received a fraud notice from my bank. I regret nothing.
I’ll never not be amazed by people going on a run at 6:30 AM.
In the more touristy parts of town, bicycles might be tied to each other, but more often than not, they aren’t secured by anything more than a café lock. On the side streets, bicycles are simply strewn around. I was told that the flimsy locks weren’t made to deter theft, but to avoid bikes tipping over. This level of social trust is admirable — and incredibly relaxing.
The KMSKA has a fantastic collection of Flemish painters, including two of my new favourites, Rik Wouters and Jules Schmalzigaug. It made the best of an uncomfortable situation, by making an event out of the Adoration of the Magi in-room restoration, putting the spotlight on a crucial practice that’s usually hidden from view. Its rooms dedicated to drawings and sculptures are easily missed and fairly small, which means they’re intimate spaces where you can spend all the time you want with the works.
It’s also one of the worst museums i’ve ever visited (the worst being the MoMU, also in Antwerpen, if you can call that travesty a museum). The labels are printed in a comically small font, forcing you to bend down and squint at them… and then take twenty steps back to admire the monumental paintings. A lot of stairs were condemned and an elevator was inaccessible, making the visit an absolute hell for parents, seniors and everyone with a mobility impairment. Worse, every thematic room had a soundtrack, which actively prevents people from feeling their feelings. The clashing cacophony of sounds bleeding into neighbouring rooms made me real tired, real fast.
“I wouldn’t try to learn Flemish”, she said after my clumsy attempt at ordering one of Lints’s delicious berry rolls. And yet…
The few cars that venture deep into the low emission zone are mostly electric and overwhelmingly luxury. Does it mean that the rich finally care about something other than themselves? Not quite: according to official sources, almost 90% of them are company-owned cars, which effectively makes them tax avoidance vehicles.
I can’t say i was disappointed by the Cathedral of Our Lady, because it features the tallest church tower in the Benelux, the Plantin-Moretus family tomb, lovely choir stalls from the 19th century and no less than four paintings by Peter Paul Rubens. But the St. Charles Borromeo church’s history is just more interesting. St. Paul, meanwhile, might just be the most beautiful parish church i’ve ever seen1, even in the midst of an extensive renovation, complete with a breathtaking calvary.
IMS Tijdschriften is a delightfully weird store selling more than 10,000 magazines from around the world. Seeing an older gentleman not trying his hardest to conceal his porn score brought me back a few decades.
Parlion has a very limited, but very awesome selection of freshly homemade ice creams. Their banana peanut butter blend was an absolute banger.
The peace! The quiet! The smiles on the faces that aren’t hidden behind the windscreen of a two-ton killing machine!
I still haven’t found a decent croissant in the whole of the Belgian kingdom. Couques au beurre are a perfectly acceptable substitute, though.
The MAS is everything the KMSKA isn’t. It owns more than 600,000 objects connected to the history of the port of Antwerp, but it carefully curates them into six rotating selections, one on each exhibition floor. A visible storage room can be visited free of charge and there’s a floor just for kids. To go up to the ninth floor with the escalators and all the way back down takes almost half an hour, but everything is accessible by escalators and sitting is plentiful. There’s a quiet room on the seventh floor, and if it all gets too much, you can leave and return the same day. I loved the whole experience — and i was incredibly happy to finally be able to see the Paul & Dora Janssen collection of American art.
It’s easy to dismiss the Red Star Line Museum. It’s far from the city centre, on the outskirts of the Eilandje, on the southern edge of the shipping port. It’s also the place where thousands upon thousands of people passed through on their way to America, including some of the French migrants i researched at university. In telling their story, the collection tells the story of the hope (and fear) that every migrant harbours. It’s well worth the 10-minute tram trip.
I don’t think i’ve seen even one cyclist wearing a helmet in Utrecht, which shows that there’s safety in numbers. Unfortunately, it’s not something the politicians back at home seem to understand (or: they understand it quite well, but have decided to thwart efforts to develop cycling infrastructure because they mainly come from left-leaning cities. Who cares about subsidiarity, air quality, noise pollution, public health and countless car homicides when you can score a few political points?)
Have i told you how much i love stroopwafels?
It’s easy to feel European when you speak three of the twenty-four official languages and understand two or three more, when your family tree spans half the continent, when you can cross borders without showing your passport even at the height of a manufactured migrant crisis, when your phone’s data plan roams over without a surcharge, and when you can use the same currency everywhere.
When i see wind turbines dotted across the horizon, i can’t help but imagine modern-day Don Quixotes riding their bicycles to chase gas-guzzling giants under the white cotton balls in the sky. Just like that, a 90-minute train trip through the Dutch countryside passes in an instant.
For the first time, i’ve had to endure an AI-generated audioguide. It was horrendous, ghastly, dreadful, abysmal, miserable and all the related words you can find in all the thesauri in the world. What makes it even worse is that it happened in the beautiful Hendrick Conscience Heritage Library’s Nottebohm Room, at an exhibition about bookbinding, of all things. What a shame.
I visited not one, but two geeky museums in a single trip. Train World is more outwardly made for kids, but you don’t need to be a kid to enjoy climbing aboard a 19th-century locomotive, playing in a train simulator and being suddenly dwarfed by the nose of a Eurostar e320.
“You should act like you own the place” was my friend’s advice about luxury shops, which is how i found myself trying out a Montblanc Meisterstück LeGrand in burgundy red. It’s a fantastic fountain pen with the most glassy M nib i’ve ever had the pleasure of writing with. It’s also €990. I went out of the store with a Lamy Safari Meteora instead.
I need to tip my hat to the SNCB, Belgium’s national railway company. Their app and website are clear, simple, and devoid of scummy upselling and shady ads for car rentals and hotels. If every national railway company — beginning with the SNCF — could be passenger-oriented like that, travelling in Europe would be a pleasure, instead of the mild annoyance it currently is.