There is something to be said about second cities. At the very least, the price tag and risk of disappointment are lower and the scope for upside surprise greater. These cities put you further away from the tourist and closer to things authentic and local; they make it is easier to understand the spirit of place, to share real moments with real people. I don’t mean to say this applies everywhere – take Germany, it has no clear single second city, just the top four. But don’t include cities of the Milan or Barcelona variety – these ‘second’ cities make their respective capitals look secondary in many ways. And while Krakow and St. Petersburg technically happen to check the box too their former capital status does a better job of keeping them in the spotlight. I mean a clear second city – distant, in size and today’s political role, but of much greater historical and cultural significance than the sound of its name implies. Like Antwerp. In the case of Belgium’s second city, a common inconvenience – access – is not an issue: getting to Antwerp is ridiculously easy, thanks to this country’s density of short intercity rail links, arguably world’s highest.
Antwerp’s central role in Europe’s artistic and commercial development has now been widely acknowledged – among historians at least, they are the ones who have named it Rome of the North, no less. Among tourists – not so much. Oracles of travel and fashion seem to have reached consensus that Antwerp equals ‘hip’ but it has not yet gone mainstream and remains a well-kept secret. Don’t wait for mass tour operators to put this place on the map: this city is not easy to industrialize, it is not a typical travel destination where the agenda can be dominated by a handful of must-see landmarks. Instead, it is one with many diffused places of interest and scattered sites, one that lends itself well to self-guided exploration and casual discovery – street by street. And neighborhood by neighborhood: this pocket-sized metropolis is just big enough to warrant the addition of the neighborhood dimension. Getting a taste of local architecture and street food here can be a pleasant experience. Meeting a local, and striking a conversation with one, could be a treat, thanks to Antwerp’s concentration of talent, coolness and creativity.
Today not quite in the dumpster but squarely off the radar and, despite all the talk of recent rebirth and rediscovery, still stuck among Europe’s overlooked cities. Perhaps the greatest among the overlooked. A victim of collective ignorance, indifference – and geography. Underserved by luxury accommodations – despite all the cultural riches, the intensity of character, the multitude of rewarding viewing angles, and the enviable housing stock – Antwerp only recently seemed to have given up in its unequal fight with geography. It must be the short distance to Brussels and Amsterdam – not to mention Paris and London – that debase Antwerp’s currency in the eyes of an average consumer of travel and hospitality services, marginalizing and reducing it to a brief stop on the way or, at best, a reluctant day trip destination. To me, this misguided day trip consensus presents an opportunity to do precisely the opposite – one day is not nearly enough – and stay overnight. This city certainly has a story to tell, one previously untold or, if anyone was listening, not fully understood. A recent uptick in luxury boutique hotel openings should help tip the balance – just take Le Tissu in the well-appointed Jewish quarter close to an entrance to Stadtspark, the Matelote on Haarstraat between Hogstraat and Scheldt, the Franq, a boutique hotel just opened in an 18th century bank building a block from St Charles Borromeo, or the nearby de Witte Lelie.
Somehow the refined, the intricate, the eclectic, or even the open-minded are not adjectives often associated with Belgium – and never the operative words on rare occasions when they are. On the other hand, dullness and dreadfulness are somehow considered purely Belgian, mostly by their cultural superiors to the South, and often by those who have never been. Few acknowledge this country as one of Europe’s idiosyncratic crossroads where a unique mix of elevated aesthetics has prospered for centuries. Fewer still realize style and culture here have deep roots and are still very much alive and well. This region, during the Renaissance, most enlightened N of the Alps – is often swept by a casual observer into a pile of bland and nondescript places on the margins of the continent. This is the fate of a small gem pushed around by arrogant, larger neighbors and trapped in their exaggerated shadow – even if these neighbors themselves only recently emerged from relative cultural inferiority. The issue here may be a lack of national ideology or patriotic rhetoric. Belgium is Europe’s newest pre-WWI state, formed only in 1830 – the fragmented Italy and Germany were always a thing, recognized as a concept, an ideal, a language, well before Garibaldi’s Risorgimento and Bismark’s conquest of 1870, but Belgium was not and had to be created – by combining two neighboring groups that were among the continent’s most artistically advanced and commercially accomplished. Culturally distinct and self-sufficient, these two groups were linked to Spain, Austria, and Rome by historical ties, and to the neighboring French and Dutch nation states linguistically. Thankfully, Belgium’s state formation is of the older vintage, one that predated the spread of radical ideas of the French Revolution of 1848, one that came before universal suffrage or the widespread urbanization and industrialization. The first continental European country to industrialize, thanks to to its compact topology, highly developed port infrastructure, centuries old trading traditions, and proximity to England and NW Germany. Fortuitous timing enabled the new state to complete its own nation building in a remarkably short span of time while remaining multiethnic, eclectic, and not very centralized – an anomaly for Western Europe, and a cultural legacy left by the Holy Roman Empire snd the House of Austria. Perhaps this early formation is the secret sauce that allowed Belgium to avoid forced social engineering into a totalitarian nation state, in the name of the people, around tribal symbols and against a common enemy. This is a fate other new states that embarked on their unification later – fascist Italy or Nazi Germany – were unable to escape. In the age of mono-ethnic nation state, anything less than supercharged rhetoric and aggressively displayed patriotic pride is often mistaken for dullness. Belgium chose instead an outward looking policy of outreach: a multilingual civic state rather than a nation state of traditional mono-ethnic variety, its very open capital city hosts major supranational institutions governing the EU and NATO, and it is home to the largest number of multinationals headquarters, all out of proportion to Belgium’s current political or economic significance as a standalone country. This melting pot helps explain the eclectic cultural and artistic mosaic of the country’s cosmopolitan second city.
Arguing with geography is a fool’s errand, and I wouldn’t expect Belgium’s larger neighbors to give it much credit any time soon. You are likely to find places in Antwerp that will remind you of other cities, but often these reminders are indeed the originals. Brits won’t agree but I would take it a step further and claim that Antwerp was the launchpad of artistic and commercial trends that helped make London great – beyond serving as the greatest influence on London’s aristocratic residences and on its general building style. Things traditionally regarded as quintessentially English – the establishment of the world’s first stock exchange here in 1460 that dominated Europe’s finances in into the mid 1500’s, of the world’s first financial newsletter in the 1500’s, of the garden and gardening in the 1400’s, and even Van Dyck in the 1620’s – are among Antwerp’s exports to England. This city, London’s closest trading partner of the time, rarely gets any credit for it, quite unsurprisingly. Intricate merchant dwellings and flamboyant guild halls of Renaissance Antwerp directly and unmistakably influenced Paris of Henry IV in the early 1600’s, shaping its oldest surviving and much admired Place Dauphine and Place Royale (current Place des Vosges), ranking consistently at the very top of Paris’s most architecturally distinguished and expensive residential addresses.
