On the banks of the River Scheldt is Het Steen, one of the oldest buildings in Antwerp. A fortress has stood on this spot for close to a thousand years. At first it was used to control the river and protect against Viking raids. Rebuilt several times over the centuries, what you see today dates from the 16th century. It is only a small part of a much bigger fort that was built by Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, and knocked down in the 19th century.
It’s an impressive sight, as is the statue commemorating Lange Wapper. One of Antwerp’s most intriguing tales, Lange Wapper is a Flemish folkloric character, a shapeshifting giant who, it is claimed, terrorised the good people of Antwerp. He was fond of tormenting and threatened drunks, and fooling children. Lange Wapper is Antwerp’s very own bogeyman – a cautionary device to instill fear in people.
It’s said that one of Lange Wapper’s legacies are the many images of the Virgin Mary in Antwerp. The giant was allegedly afraid of Mary and couldn’t look upon her face. It’s a face you find gazing from shrines attached to buildings across Antwerp. The statue to this ‘water devil’ as he became known, was a fitting start point for my exploration of the city’s oldest harbour area, Eilandje Haven.
It’s a short walk from Lange Wapper along the river to Loodswezen, a late 19th century building on the edge of the Eilandje area. The docks date back to the 1550s, although it was Napoleon who ordered them to be expanded when the French controlled the country. No longer a commercial port, it is one of the most rapidly gentrifying areas in Antwerp, filled with museums, apartments and parks.
It’s hard to imagine today, but this area was abandoned and derelict for decades after the port moved further out of town. Ìf you want a sense of the former seediness of this area, a walk down Schippersstraat takes you past dive bars and brothels. The ‘windows’ of the red light district are a bit jarring as you make the transition from medieval centre to up-and-coming Eilandje Haven.
The striking red brick Museum aan de Stroom stands at the entrance to the harbour district, it and the nearby Red Star Line Museum are both excellent. I was heading to the very far end of the district though, to one of the most outlandish and audacious buildings in Antwerp, the Port Authority offices. I walked along the river past a series of historic cranes once used to load and unload ships, now looking more like metal dinosaurs.
My route passed several old docks housing historic ships that form part of an open air museum. You see the Port Authority building long before you reach it. Straddling a 1920s fire station built as a replica of a 16th century Hanseatic house, is an enormous glass building that gleams in the sun like the diamonds Antwerp is famous for importing.
Designed by British-Iranian architect Zaha Hadid, the extension to the fire station is more spaceship than ocean going ship. If the old Hanseatic-style fire station recalls Antwerp’s Golden Age, the modern addition is a vision for a city whose past, present and future is intimately tied to the river, sea and trade. Europe’s second largest port, Antwerp serves 15,000 ships and 60,000 inland barges each year.
The walk back to the city through the centre of Eilandje Haven passes more docks, some filled with houseboats, and new apartment developments. There are also restaurants, bars and offices in old warehouses, as well as the brewery that makes Seef Bier. A local speciality dating to the 16th century, Seef was so popular in Antwerp that the Seefhoek quarter was named after it. My walk almost finished, it seemed rude not to have a glass.
