Art Pursuits - Antwerp

Art Pursuits Study Tour Programme

Antwerp

The rise and glory of a Flemish metropolis

9 - 12 October 2008

Day 1	In the morning, travel by Eurostar from London St. Pancras to Brussels and onward to Antwerp Centraal, arriving mid-afternoon. Private minibus transfer to your 4* hotel followed by a guided orientation walk in the historic centre. Dinner (included) at a local restaurant.
Day 2	Morning walk through the south quarter of town, enjoying more recent Antwerp architecture, from Art Nouveau to Postmodern. We will visit the acclaimed new Law Courts building designed by Richard Rogers, an extraordinary, light-filled 'secular cathedral'. After lunch (included) we explore the Museum of Fine Arts, with its outstanding collection of Netherlandish and Flemish painting, including work by van Eyck, Rubens, van Dyck and Jordaens and twentieth-century masters including Magritte. Free evening.
Day 3	We first visit Antwerp's Gothic Cathedral of Our Lady, with breathtaking altarpieces by Rubens including the Descent from the Cross, one of his greatest masterpieces, and continue to the house of Rubens' contemporary and friend Nicolaas Rockox, recently beautifully restored and containing a good collection of Flemish pictures. After lunch (independent) we explore Rubens' house, meticulously reconstructed to its seventeenth-century splendour, as embellished for the artist with up-to-date Baroque decoration to impress his many illustrious visitors. The house contains several pictures by the artist himself, and the pretty garden has also been restored. Dinner (included) at a local restaurant.
Day 4	In the morning we visit the tiny private St Charles Chapel, containing fifteenth-century wall-paintings, amongst the oldest in Antwerp, and then discover the remarkable Plantin-Moretus Museum, home of a famous printing works and centre of learning, where the outstanding collection reveals the process of book design and production. After lunch (independent), transfer by taxi to Antwerp Centraal station for the train journey back to Brussels and on to London by Eurostar, arriving back at St. Pancras in the early evening.

Please note that at this stage the programme is still provisional. Although we aim at the greatest degree of accuracy from the outset, some details, especially the order of visits, may be subject to change.