What are the best day trips from Antwerp?

Ghent over Bruges if you only have one day. The 60 km trip from Antwerp-Centraal takes 50 minutes on an IC train, about €22 round trip in standard class, with departures twice an hour. With about 265,000 residents, Ghent is big enough that two people with different appetites can split up for a few hours without anyone compromising. The history-minded partner can spend 2 hours at St Bavo's Cathedral with the van Eyck brothers' Ghent Altarpiece from 1432, about €16 entry, though weekend timed slots tend to fill by noon. The foodie walks 10 minutes east to Patershol, a knot of narrow streets where the smell of stoofvlees drifts from almost every doorway. Pakhuis on Schuurkenstraat does a proper Flemish beef stew with dark beer sauce, thick and malty, mains around €20-25. Meet at the Graslei waterfront around 6pm, when the stone facades go gold in the late light and the terrace tables fill with locals nursing Tripel Karmeliet. Last train back to Antwerp runs around 11pm.

Bruges is the obvious romantic pick, and it earns the reputation, mostly. Canal boat rides run about €12 per person for 30 minutes from several departure points near the Burg, and they feel intimate when the weather cooperates. By 11am in June, though, the Markt square belongs to tour buses from Zeebrugge cruise ships. You'll hear more English and German than Dutch. Take the 7:50 IC from Antwerp-Centraal, arriving 9:12 with one change at Ghent-Sint-Pieters, about €30 round trip, and head south first. The Begijnhof courtyard is still quiet before 10am, all white walls, damp grass, and the sound of wood pigeons. Minnewater park, a 5-minute walk further south, has benches along the water where you can sit without ending up in someone's selfie. Work your way north through the chocolate shops on Katelijnestraat by afternoon. De Proeverie does a warm drinking chocolate thick enough to coat the spoon, around €5. Catch the 5pm train home and skip the return crush.

Mechelen is the trip for when one of you needs to slow down. It sits 25 km south of Antwerp, a 15-minute ride by IC train for about €6 round trip. The whole historic center is walkable in 2 hours. Climb St. Rumbold's Cathedral tower, all 538 steps, for €8 and a view across the flat Flemish countryside. Then head to Het Anker brewery on Guido Gezellelaan, where the tour runs about €12 and includes 2 tastings of Gouden Carolus, a dark ale with notes of dried fruit and caramel. The Grote Markt cafes in Mechelen keep a different pace from Antwerp's tourist zones. That said, if both of you want more stimulation, Brussels is 48 km south, 40 minutes by IC from Antwerp-Centraal, about €16 round trip. The Magritte Museum on Place Royale runs €10 per person and gives the art lover a focused 90 minutes. Ten minutes south on foot, the Sablon handles the food half. Pierre Marcolini's shop on Place du Grand Sablon sells individual ganaches for about €2.50 each, bitter and smooth and gone in one bite.

For a different kind of day entirely, Rotterdam sits 80 km north across the Dutch border, about 1 hour 10 minutes by IC from Antwerp-Centraal, around €25 round trip. The Markthal food hall opened in 2014, and its 11,000-square-metre ceiling mural by Arno Coenen draws your eyes up the moment you step inside. The cube houses on Overblaak are a 3-minute walk east. One partner could spend an afternoon at Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, which opened in 2021 as the first publicly accessible art storage facility, about €20 entry. The other might prefer Fenix Food Factory in Katendrecht, a former warehouse district across the Maas where the air still carries the smell of roasted coffee and smoked fish. Meet at Hotel New York's waterfront terrace for a pre-train drink. All of these day trips leave from Antwerp-Centraal, which is itself worth arriving 15 minutes early to see. The station's main hall dates to 1905, and the marble and filtered light give it a cathedral hush. You might find yourselves at the café on the upper level, watching IC trains pull in below, before you've even left the city.