Christmas in Antwerp: Our Favourite Easy Festive Day Trip

Yes. But I want to set your expectations correctly.

If you are imagining something on the scale of Cologne’s Christmas markets, Antwerp isn’t that. The Christmas market is much smaller.

I have been to Cologne several times too, and if your only question is which has the better Christmas markets, it’s Cologne. Easily.

But Antwerp has something Cologne cannot give us: ease. From where we live in the south of the Netherlands, Antwerp is close enough that we can decide to go for the day without turning it into a major trip.

We can shop, eat, walk, have a drink, see the Christmas market and go home. That makes it one of the easiest Christmas days we do - and one of the ones I still look forward to.

Antwerp’s Christmas season usually spreads through the historic centre rather than being confined to one square.

For 2026, the festive period is currently listed from 4 December 2026 until 3 January 2027, centred around places such as Grote Markt, Suikerrui, Steenplein and Groenplaats.

Before you go, I would check the final programme against the City of Antwerp’s official winter calendar, because individual attractions, opening hours and locations can still change.

What doesn’t change much is the basic experience: you arrive in central Antwerp and simply start walking. That is how I would do it.

This is probably the most important thing I can tell you.

I wouldn’t travel to Antwerp, walk directly to the Christmas market, spend two hours there and go home. You would be missing the point.

The Christmas market works because it is Antwerp plus Christmas: the historic centre, the shopping streets, beautiful buildings, Belgian food, cafés and terraces, a little shopping, a little drinking, then some more eating.

The market becomes part of a lovely day in Antwerp rather than the only reason the day exists. And that is why I think it works so well.

We don’t need an hour-by-hour itinerary here. In fact, I would actively avoid one.

Arrive. Walk into the city. Shop for a while. Find something to eat. Continue wandering. Have a drink somewhere. Go towards the Christmas market. Eat something else because apparently lunch was a very long time ago. Have a jenever. Look at the lights. Maybe find another terrace. Eventually decide it is probably time to go home.

That is basically it. And I mean that as a compliment.

Not every city break needs a list of fourteen essential attractions. Sometimes a successful day is simply one where you enjoyed being in the city.

For us, one of the nicest ways to do Antwerp is by train. We can cross the border into Belgium and take the train from Essen directly towards Antwerp.

Belgian rail travel makes the city extremely easy for us, and there is another very practical Christmas-market advantage: neither of us needs to drive home afterwards.

Which matters, because at an Antwerp Christmas market, I am having a jenever. Possibly more than one. There are plenty of things I can be sensible about. This is not one of them.

Bas is also much more interested in Belgian speciality beers than I am - I usually prefer wine, although Belgium can occasionally tempt me with a fruit beer or a good stout.

That is another reason I like taking the train. No discussion about who is driving. No counting drinks. No city-centre parking. Get on the train, arrive at Antwerpen-Centraal and start the day.

Calling Antwerpen-Centraal simply a train station feels slightly unfair. It is magnificent.

The monumental station dates from the beginning of the twentieth century and is one of those rare places where arriving by train already feels like part of the city trip.

You walk out and Antwerp is in front of you. From there, we simply head towards the centre on foot. Shopping begins almost immediately, and by the time you reach the historic heart of the city, you have already been in Antwerp for quite a while.

That is one of the reasons the train works so well for a day trip. There is no awkward transfer from an airport or remote station. You arrive in the city.

We don’t always take the train. If we drive, one of the nicest ways to approach central Antwerp is to park on the Linkeroever side of the Scheldt and walk through the pedestrian tunnel - officially the Sint-Annatunnel.

And honestly? The tunnel is part of the fun. You descend underground on those wonderful old wooden escalators, walk beneath the Scheldt and emerge on the city-centre side.

The tunnel opened in 1933 and its original wooden escalators have been preserved. It is a wonderfully strange little piece of Antwerp, and I would much rather begin a day that way than spend half an hour circling central Antwerp looking for a parking garage.

Once you come back up on the right bank, the historic centre is close, so even the walk into town becomes part of the day.

This is Belgium. Come hungry.

Fries with stoofvlees is one of the things I actively look forward to - proper Belgian fries, preferably somewhere around the historic centre, and preferably when I am hungry enough that the idea of sharing is completely unreasonable. It is rich. It is not elegant. It is excellent.

Then there are smoutebollen - warm little fried dough balls, usually covered in icing sugar. Belgium’s answer to the sort of winter fair food you have absolutely no interest in eating in July and suddenly desperately need when standing outside in December.

And jenever. Obviously. Not technically food. Still on the list.

Antwerp is one of those cities where I genuinely enjoy spending part of the day shopping, and at Christmas, that fits naturally into the trip.

The route from Antwerpen-Centraal towards the historic centre takes you through the main shopping areas anyway, so there is no need to choose between a shopping day and a Christmas-market day. Do both.

That is another major difference from Cologne. In Cologne, I am travelling primarily for the Christmas markets. In Antwerp, Christmas is layered over a city we already enjoy visiting - the shops are part of it, the restaurants are part of it, the buildings are part of it, the market is part of it.

For us? Absolutely. We are close enough that there is no reason to make every visit an overnight stay, and Antwerp is compact enough that you can have a very satisfying Christmas day without sleeping there.

That is why I would never artificially turn this guide into a list of the best hotels near the Antwerp Christmas market. That isn’t how we use the city.

And I don’t want an affiliate opportunity deciding what kind of travel advice I give you.

If Antwerp isn’t almost on your doorstep, yes, I would consider it - particularly if this is your first visit.

There is easily enough in Antwerp for a weekend, and staying centrally means you can enjoy the Christmas atmosphere after the day-trippers start leaving.

I would then look for somewhere around the historic centre rather than choosing a hotel purely because it happens to be inexpensive. But I don’t have a first-hand Antwerp hotel I love enough to tell you this is where you need to stay.

We once stayed in a small B&B above a flower shop, but that isn’t a strong enough current recommendation for me to build hotel advice around. So I won’t.

If we eventually add accommodation recommendations to this guide, they should be carefully selected because they genuinely fit the trip. Not because we need somewhere to put a link.

There is a point where bigger stops meaning better. Cologne’s scale is fantastic when that is what I want. But I don’t need every Christmas outing to be Cologne.

Antwerp can be much simpler. There is no pressure to spend the entire day moving between six enormous Christmas markets. You can see the market, then go somewhere else. Have lunch. Go shopping. Sit down. Have another drink. Return after dark.

It fits into the city rather than swallowing it. And because we know Antwerp so well, we don’t arrive with that slightly frantic feeling that we need to make the most of every minute. We know we will be back. That changes how you experience a place.

These two shouldn’t really compete. But because both are realistic Christmas trips from the Netherlands, I know people will compare them.

Choose Cologne if: you specifically want a Christmas-market weekend. You want scale. You want multiple major markets. You want that immersive German Christmas atmosphere. You are happy to stay one or two nights.

Choose Antwerp if: you want an easy Christmas day or weekend. You want shopping and food to matter as much as the market. You don’t want a complicated trip. You like Belgian cafés, beer, fries and beautiful old city streets. You might prefer taking the train and not thinking about parking at all.

For me: Cologne has the better Christmas markets. Antwerp is the easier Christmas tradition. And I wouldn’t want to give up either.

This is a slightly different comparison. Düsseldorf gives me a polished overnight escape: a lovely hotel, Königsallee, Christmas markets, Altstadt and shopping.

Antwerp is less of an escape for us because it is so easy to reach. It feels more spontaneous.

If I want one lovely night away, I would choose Düsseldorf. If I wake up on a December morning and think: shall we just go somewhere Christmassy today? Antwerp wins.

For 2026, the Christmas festivities are currently expected to begin in early December.

Because Antwerp is so easy for us, I don’t need to optimise the trip around the quietest possible date. But if I were travelling from further away, I would prefer a weekday or Sunday over the busiest Saturday before Christmas.

And I would absolutely stay until after dark. Antwerp doesn’t need an enormous Christmas market to become more beautiful once all the lights come on.

Choose Antwerp if you don’t need Christmas to be a production. You want a beautiful city, a festive market, shopping, Belgian food, a jenever, perhaps another jenever.

You want to walk rather than chase attractions. You want a day that feels Christmassy without needing an entire Christmas weekend itinerary. And if you are travelling from the south of the Netherlands or Belgium, you want something that can be wonderfully easy.

Antwerp isn’t the Christmas market I would cross Europe for. It is something perhaps more useful: the Christmas city I can imagine returning to year after year. Which, as it turns out, is exactly what we do.