Something to Declare

Antwerp

October 24, 2025

Antwerp (or Anvers, in French) is to Brussels sort of like Chicago is to New York, the “Second City.” Culturally different, since Antwerp is the de facto capital of the Flemish (Flanders) part of Belgium, and you hear no French spoken. It was home to the artist Peter Paul Rubens, who gave us the expression “Rubensesque“, e.g., “Venus in Front of the Mirror” (1614-1615):

Well there you go.

On arrival in Antwerp, you’re in one of Europe’s (the world’s?) most impressive train stations:

We took the Métro from the station, heading for (yet another) Grote Markt. But we got off a station early, at the Groenplats, where we got our first gander at (yet another) Church of Our Lady (Onze-Lieve-Vrouwenkerk), and a statue of Rubens.

We took the short walk from Groenplaats to the Grote Markt, fronted by the town hall, a fountain, and the (to be expected) guild houses.

See the close-up of the fountain sculpture (above, top right), which displays a grisly piece of Flemish folklore: The giant Druon Antigoon collected tolls on the river Scheldt. When a traveller couldn’t pay, Druon severed the traveller’s hand. This went on until a Roman solder, Silvius Brabo, defeated Druon. He cut off the giant’s own hand (that’ll teach you!) and threw it into the river. (That’s Brabo, in mid-throw, at the top.)

As the global hub of the diamond trade for six centuries, Antwerp is styled as the “Diamond Capital of the World” (streets lined with diamond merchants.) Only appropriate that it should also contain a museum dedicated to the diamond, DIVA.

DIVA is not an acronym, by the way, but rather is intended to evoke glamour and luxury, and the people who wore these stones.

DIVA offers an intro to the places and methods of extraction of diamonds from its ore, Kimberlite.

Then to displays of the finished stones, myriad artistic settings, changing over the centuries, as well as exhibits of gold and silver:

DIVA was also full of educational exhibits on how to tell real diamonds and precious metals from imitations. The repeated unspoken message was clear: Buy your diamonds not from flim-flam fraudsters, but rather from bona fide diamantaires. (Um….like, for example, the folks who underwrote this museum.) And, whatever you do, do not buy artificial diamonds or (quel horreur!) cubic zirconium.

I know you’re waiting for this…….Lunch!

We found a place called Maritime nearby, and had our next rounds of moules-frites (can’t resist the stuff, apparently).

The ones served at Maritime were particularly delish. And we had a nice conversation with a server whose English was quite good (he told us proudly that he’d learned it from playing video games).

Time to go back to Brussels. On the way back to the train station, some lovely examples of Antwerp’s own Art Nouveau heritage:

It’s supposed to be very rainy tomorrow. Maybe another day off? Stay tuned.