Day 169: Exploring Antwerp

Busy day of sight-seeing and UNESCO sites today! First up we headed into the centre of town to visit an unusual WHS - a museum! It was the Plantin-Moretus museum; essentially it was the home, workshop and factory of one of the world's most influential printers. Company founder Christophe Plantin and his descendants printed loads and loads of stuff - not just religious texts, but also maps, scientific papers, textbooks, laws, government pamphlets, illustrations and collector's books.

Consequently, they were very rich as Antwerp was one of the world's wealthiest cities at the time (15th and 16th centuries). Their house and workshop was enormous and preserved much as it was when they lived there, which was really interesting to see. Highlight was the beautiful courtyard garden, and the oldest printing machine still in existence (though it's still more than 100 years younger than Gutenberg's original press).

After a good couple of hours exploring the museum and filming, we headed back outside away from the darkness. Had a lovely lunch at a cafe on the square in front of the museum, away from the tourist district so it was fairly cheap and authentic. Toast with avocado!

After lunch we grabbed a couple of buses and a tram out to the outskirts of the city to see another WHS - a townhouse designed by the Swiss architect, Le Corbusier. This is going to be an extremely difficult site to fully see, as it's a combined listing for many of Le Corbusier's buildings. It covers about 15 buildings, mostly in France, though there are also entries in Japan, India and Argentina! Might take a while!

The house was interesting enough, but as with many of these houses you can only see them from outside. We did a quick bit of filming, then hopped on the tram and headed home. Stayed in for the rest of the afternoon and did work. Only ducked out in the evening for a cheap meal at a nearby Thai restaurant.Read more