Club Vaag has run house and techno nights in the basement of Rijnkaai 4 since 2015. Ten years on, it has outlasted Zillion and Ampere.
Category: 🎡 Things to do
From must-see sights to off-the-beaten-path experiences, we highlight the best things to do in Antwerp. Get inspired and start planning your next adventure.
Summer in Antwerp: a swimming dock and 74 days of festival
Zomer van Antwerpen ran for 74 days in 2026, and much of it was free. Here is what actually runs in Antwerp in July and August, from a swimming dock by the MAS to the Bollekesfeest.
Middelheim Museum: 75 years of free sculpture in an Antwerp park
Antwerp’s open-air sculpture museum began with 167 sculptures in Middelheim park in 1950. Seventy-five years on it holds about 440, across some 30 hectares, and still charges nothing.
Zurenborg, Antwerp’s art nouveau quarter on sour ground
Most of Zurenborg went up between 1894 and 1906, on a farm named after its acidic soil. A plan to demolish the Cogels-Osylei failed, and in 1980 the street was protected.
The Radisson Blu Astrid Hotel, Michael Graves’s answer to Antwerp Central
Michael Graves designed the Astrid Park Plaza opposite Antwerp Central in 1993. As the Radisson Blu Astrid Hotel it has 253 rooms, and the square outside is about to change.
Hotel Julien, two 16th-century houses in Antwerp with 21 rooms
Mouche Van Hool opened Hotel Julien in 2004 in two 16th-century town houses on the Korte Nieuwstraat. Peter Ivens and Bea Mombaers have now redesigned its 21 rooms.
Van der Valk Hotel Antwerpen, 237 rooms built for the ring road
The Van der Valk Hotel Antwerpen in Borgerhout has 237 rooms, 18 meeting rooms and 315 free parking spaces. It is a conference hotel at the ring road, and a good one to have in a city that struggles to fill rooms midweek.
Rivierenhof, the Deurne estate the province bought for everyone in 1921
The Province of Antwerp bought the Rivierenhof in 1921 to keep the houses out. A century on, the 132-hectare park in Deurne draws more than a million visitors a year and still charges none of them.
Deurne: an airport, a park and a castle for sale
Deurne, Antwerp’s second-largest district with 85,283 inhabitants, has the city’s airport, its largest park and the Bosuil, and a castle the province tried to sell.
Park Spoor Noord turned a rail yard into Antwerp-Noord’s garden
A 24-hectare railway yard divided three districts of Antwerp-Noord for more than a century. Since 2008, 18 hectares of it have been a park, with barbecues for streets where one home in eight had outdoor space.