Hafenstadt Antwerp

Tuesday 2022/09/13

Of course, a single day is far from enough to see everything Antwerp, this exceptional city on the Scheldt, has to offer. However, as a day trip planned from the campsite in Kasterlee, we will limit ourselves to one day and an overview - with a focus on modern architecture. We will skip the old masters, of which there are also many to see here, as we still want to go further to Holland, where there are even more than enough pictures to see. The new harbor house designed by Zaha Hadid Architects and the MAS, the "Museum aan de Stroom" (Neutelings Riedijk Architects, Rotterdam), are all the more surprising.

The exhibition spaces of the 62-meter high museum tower MAS are stacked over ten floors in containers or "boxes". Each level is rotated by 90 degrees, resulting in a spiral arrangement. The galleries with undulating glass surfaces in between allow changing views of the city and the harbor. The facade of the museum is adorned with 3000 hands of polished aluminum, made in an Italian company Sun Glass, which refers to the origin of the city's name, Antwerp. In the meantime, there were jumps in the undulating glass surfaces produced by the Italian company Sun Glass. Several elements had to be replaced and specialists from the University of Ghent were commissioned to investigate the cause of the problem (source: Wikipedia).

The view from the MAS panoramic roof of the city of Antwerp is fascinating. Both the harbor house and the MAS are lighthouse projects that send clear signals about the future development of the city and the former harbor area. With the hippest entertainment venues and trendy residential areas. The development is currently in full swing.

In the morning, we drove by car to Geel (I wouldn't normally mention this), parked there for free all day right next to the train station, and comfortably took the Belgian train to the center of Antwerp in less than an hour. In the evening, we returned the same way. Worth mentioning: The senior fare ticket actually costs only CHF 7.20 per person for the round trip. And also worth mentioning: You definitely have to see Antwerp train station!

We ate a delicious pizza outside at Da Giovanni's. We didn't feel like having mussels, crab croquettes, or fries at the moment, and pizza is only possible with restrictions in the caravan.