Antwerp travel guide

Sinjoren - Sirs - men from Antwerp call themselves with pride. In the capital city of Brussels, they say, money is spent; Antwerp is where it is earned. All of Belgium smiles at this penchant for pomposity. But who can blame the Sinjoren for regarding their city as the center of it all?

Antwerp's port is now the third-largest in Europe. At four special exchanges, more than half of the trade in diamonds and gems in the world occurs. Antwerp generates fashion designers, painters, and musicians by the dozen, attracts theater people and dancers, poets and publishers -- the cultural scene is plenty lively. All of this with a historical perspective: after all, the city on the Scheldt was one of Europe's most important commercial and financial centers in the 16th century. After the turmoil of the religious wars of the day, the Counter-Reformation brought about another "Golden Age," in the center of which shined the painters Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck. Despite the heavy German bombardment with the infamous V-2 rockets in the winter of 1944-45, the many buildings and art treasures still bear witness to the glorious past of a city where life pulsates like nowhere else in Flanders.