I arrived into Antwerp from Brussels on the train and was immediately in love with the station. Ascending from the underground through platforms on enormous escalators into the cavernous space above was like entering a cathedral devoted to the railways. I was able to stash my larger bags into the automated lockers, although most of these were already full by the time I got there at about 9:30 am so being early is probably required to guarantee one, before setting out to explore the city. Antwerp is full of grand buildings dating back to its golden age in the 16th Century as one of the premier ports of Europe in the early days of colonialism. I particularly like the Grote Markt square, which is not too far behind Brussel’s Grand Place in my estimation. Indeed, it seems to me the ‘Historic Centre of Antwerp’ would have easily been a World Heritage Site in its own right if nominated early on. However, the Belgians may well have left it too late as there are now so many (arguably too many) sites of that type in Europe that something spectacular would be needed to squeeze in and Antwerp, as marvellous as it is, might just fall short.

In any case, Antwerp already has a WHS in the form of the Plantin-Moretus House-Workshops-Museum Complex. This is a disproportionately long name for what must be one of the smallest WHS, comprising just a single 16th Century building. Having walked around Antwerp all morning, I visited the museum after lunch with unfortunate timing as I happened to enter just behind a large tour group who struggled to buy tickets. I had no such issues and bought a ticket easily for a reasonable price – this was pre-pandemic so I paid in cash and have no record of what it cost but their website says they no longer take cash and entrance is €12 as of October 2021. I didn’t know this at the time but they are closed on Mondays so I was lucky to have chosen a random Thursday. Despite appearing a relatively small building, there is plenty of space inside and so I soon lost the tour group. Initially, I was not impressed with the museum as the first few rooms were simply recreations of the interiors, which featured some fine furniture and paintings but were no different to the kind of thing that can be seen in old houses turned into museums anywhere else. I was then very disappointed as there was seemingly no more to see before I consulted the map in the leaflet I was given, which revealed there was far more to be seen. I just had to open a door that I had naively walked past earlier assuming it would be locked.

This brief embarrassment passed, the door led me out into a courtyard lined with fine brick walls and pleasant small gardens (picture attached). On the walls were busts of busts of, among others, Christophe Plantin and his son-in-law Jan Moretus, the pioneering printers whose house and workshop this was in the 16th Century. The rooms off from this courtyard contain a seemingly endless library of books, many dating back to the very earliest days of this workshop. These include an early 36-line Bible, an anatomy book by the Andreas Vesalius (whose work transformed the medical profession, which had advanced little before him since the work of the Roman physician Galen), and a collection of proverbs from the great Erasmus. There were no doubt more books of equal note but these were the three that stood out to me and one could spend all day perusing the bookcases and picking out the works of famous Renaissance thinkers. There are also a handful of original paintings by Peter Paul Rubens. I am not a huge art aficionado but Ruben’s house is just down the road in Antwerp and also open as a museum for those that are. Other rooms display the metal blocks and associated equipment that were used in printing, the kind of thing I had seen before elsewhere at other museums but the sheer size of the collection here is impressive and the various displays are all well-presented and explained.

The best room was saved for last, with a row of original printing presses attached to the wooden beams of the ceiling and a row of desks opposite with more metal type blocks. It really gave the impression of being in a genuine print workshop of the 1500s and was a remarkable end to a wonderful visit, a very enjoyable couple of hours I would recommend to anybody in the Antwerp area. Plantin started printing in 1555, over a century after Johannes Guttenberg created his first moveable type press in 1439, but the level of preservation here is what sets this museum apart. The printing business continued in the same family here until 1876 when it was donated to the city of Antwerp and, within one year, transformed into a museum. Therefore, many of the fittings, books, presses, and so on are as they were when the business closed and present a fabulous continuous history of printing technology from its inception to the modern era. I returned to the station and still had time before my train so took the opportunity to wander Antwerp Zoo, the oldest in the country as it dates from 1843. Much like the Plantin-Moretus museum, this was small but densely packed and I can also highly recommend it if you like that sort of thing. I eventually returned to Antwerp station and boarded the train to Amsterdam for a long weekend. I am happy to say that, as the last WHS after a week Belgium, Plantin-Moretus was one of the best not only of that trip but that I have seen anywhere. It may not have the grandeur or scale of the more famous sites but for what it is, a monument to the printing revolution that contributed so immensely to the Renaissance and the Reformation, it was perfect.