The beauty and Arts of Antwerp

#timetotravel Antwerp, Flemish Antwerpen, French Anvers, city, Flanders region, Belgium, that is one of the world’s major seaports. It gained fame as a centre of the diamond industry and for its legacy of fine arts. Antwerp is situated on the Schelde River, about 55 miles from the North Sea. The Schelde, together with the Meuse and the Rhine, forms the biggest estuary in western Europe, and Antwerp is an essential part of an enormous harbour complex, one of the greatest in the world. The harbour installations of Antwerp grew especially after World War II. For many years this expansion took place on the right bank of the Schelde only, but beginning in the 1970s there was much development on the left bank as well. The old city, within the arc once formed by the 16th-century fortifications, has many narrow, winding streets and old buildings. This area contains the Cathedral of Our Lady, begun in the 14th century and restored in the 19th and 20th centuries; it is one of the nation’s finest Gothic buildings. The 19th-century city, with broader and substantially right-angled streets, stretches beyond the old city and merges with some of the suburban extensions annexed in 1983. A third right-bank area spreads beyond the 19th-century fortifications and is characterized by numerous modern buildings.❤️❤️❤️