Visiting musea expositions in Antwerp

This year I'm the councellor for a Canadian Rotary exchange student in Leuven.  At one of our first meetings, she exclaimed she really wanted to see an exposition at the Plantijn-Moretus museum featuring the role of women in society and businesses. She couldn't find anyone to go along. 

Now it happens that my friend Carolien is a great cultural lover and very knowledgable about the Flemish musa and we happen to love some musum visits as well.  I checked her interest and agenda and we found a moment on the first Saturday of 2026, one week before this specific exposition would end. 

So we all met up in the train station and rode to Antwerp on a day some first snow was predicted in Belgium.  Hmm I crossed my fingers that the NMBS would not get us into problems. 

We first had a small stop at the Paleis op de Meir to show this city palace which is hidden behind the facades of all the shops on the street. 

Help I'm in a chocolate store and it smells bad!!

We quickly advanced to Plantin-Moretus as we had ticket reservations to take into account. 

The museum was quite different than I anticipated. it was way bigger than I thought but the exposition we came for was somehow a bit dillated with a sign here and there in the regular exposition.  Mind you, we had opted out to take the specific audio tour, which clearly we should have done. But ....time constrictions, children along and another cool exposition to be on time.  Oh well, I loved and admired the building of this patrician's palace and the whole history of book printing, family business and its link to the development and spread of science. 

Inner court yard

When we came out it was snowing heavily. Not very impressive for a native Canadian, although it was unique for her to catch snow in Flanders.  I enjoyed it very much since I didn't have to drive. 

In a strong snow shower (which melted right away though) we walked to the KMSKA, where I had booked tickets for the sold-out Magritte exposition.  I was so excited I'd manage to see it.  Yeaay.

We had a much needed snack first at the moment we had to go in for Magritte so it was a little in a rush but our stomachs were thankfull. 

And then it was time to explore the wonderful absurd world of the absurdism.  Super cool. Really cool, I love it.  I read some text and it struck me why indeed I love it: there is poetry in these absurd combinations that you see visually. 

hahaha how many of these would he have done??

A whole discussion with Kabouter: what is a door, and is this still a door? 

Why oh why would you have the idea to paint this. So intriguing. 

My favourite

Who knew Magritte had done some pornographic art too? 

With some time left before the museum closed we showed our Canadian friend some more of the KMSKA.  A bit to our disappointment she didn't want to see more modern art but we went to the old art instead to introduce her to Rubens and other Flemish masters. 

Memling details

Art from Leuven by Roger van der Weyden

I adore this by a female artists. So much motherhood in this!

Our feet were tired and painful by the end of the day, our heads full of impressions and we were tired when we managed to hit the train back to Leuven.  But we looked forward to a dinner together right at the train station before we called it a night and hit our beds after a nice cultural day together.