Not to miss

Museum Plantin-Moretus

The World Heritage-listed Museum Plantin-Moretus is home to the world's first industrial printing works. This fascinating museum deals with a prosperous 16th- and 17th-century printing family headed by Christoffel Plantin. Plantin moved from France to Antwerp where he set up as a bookbinder in 1548. Eight years later he started a printing business that eventually became the Low Countries' largest printing and publishing concern and a magnet for intellectuals, scientists and humanists.

On Plantin's death, the business passed to his son-in-law, Jan Moretus, and later to Jan's son, Balthasar, a friend of Rubens.

Some of the family portraits exhibited inside this museum are the master's works. Built around a central courtyard, the museum is worth visiting for the mansion alone, but also for insight into old typesetting, proofreading and printing processes. Room after room is filled with ancient presses, copper plates, old globes, Flemish tapestries and, of course, splendid manuscripts, including a rare copy of the Gutenberg Bible. In the age of email, it's hard not to admire the painstaking effort and dedication that was once needed to produce a 'simple' book.

Mode Museum

Fashion followers must start with Antwerp's mode museum, MoMu. It's located in the much-celebrated ModeNatie complex, home also to both the Flanders Fashion Institute and the fashion department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Sticking firmly to avant-garde, MoMu changes its exhibits every six months.

Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten

The Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten is a monumental neoclassical edifice built at the end of the 19th century. Its stately rooms house an impressive collection of paintings dating from the 14th century to contemporary times and includes works by Flemish masters.

The size of the museum's collection means that paintings are sometimes rotated. To find the highlights you'll need to pick up a museum plan and audio headset (both free) from reception.

The Flemish Primitives are represented by Jan Van Eyck, Hans Memling, Rogier Van der Weyden and Gerard David. Highlights include Van Eyck's unusual, almost monotone Saint Barbara (1437), Memling's rich Christ among Angels Singing and Playing Instruments and Van der Weyden's portrait of Filips Van Croy.

Sixteenth-century works to seek out include Quinten Matsijs' profound triptych The Lamentation of Christ (also called the Triptych of the Joiners' Guild). Matsijs, spelt Matsys in English, founded the Antwerp school of painting and his works reflect a deep understanding of landscape perspective. There are no originals by Pieter Breugel the Elder; however, paintings by his followers detail the enchanting peasant scenes for which Breugel was famous.

The museum's best section is undoubtedly the 17th-century Flemish baroque masters display. There are several enormous canvases by Rubens, including his famous Adoration of the Magi (1624), a hugely expressive and animated work, as well as a selection of smaller, preparatory paintings and oil sketches. The other local players of that time, Jacob Jordaens and Antoon Van Dyck, are also well represented. Watch out for Jordaens' As the Old Sing, the Young Play Pipes (1638), in which senior citizens are shown setting a good example to the young. Van Dyck was best known for his portraiture, a fine example of which is Portrait of Maarten Pepijn (1632).

Moving on to modern art, the museum has a diverse collection of paintings by James Ensor that traces his conservative beginnings - such as the Woman Eating Oysters (1882) - to his disturbing later works, exemplified here by Masks Fighting over a Hanged Man (1891).

Other Belgian artists of note whose works are exhibited include Constant Permeke and Rik Wouters, as well as surrealists René Magritte and Paul Delvaux.

Tram 8 from Groenplaats or bus 23 (direction Zuid) from Franklin Rooseveltplaats both stop out the front.