Three days in Mechelen: a capital city that stopped growing in 1530

Two nights between Brussels and Antwerp, an unfinished cathedral tower to climb, a court that once ran the Low Countries, and a deportation camp that has to be seen.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Mechelen
Places
8 across 3 days
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For twenty-odd years at the start of the 16th century, Mechelen was the capital of the Low Countries. Margaret of Austria governed the Burgundian Netherlands from a house on the Keizerstraat, brought up the boy who became Charles V a few doors away, and kept a court that Erasmus and Thomas More came to visit. Then the court moved to Brussels, and the town largely stopped.

What that leaves is a small city with a capital's architecture and none of a capital's crowds: eight medieval churches, two palaces, an enormous unfinished cathedral tower, and a carillon school that trains bell players from all over the world. The trains between Brussels and Antwerp stop here every few minutes and almost nobody gets off.

It also holds one of the most important sites in Belgium. The Dossin barracks, a ten minute walk north of the Grote Markt, is where Belgium's Jews and Roma were held before deportation to Auschwitz. The museum built around it is the reason a lot of people come, and it is not something to fit in on the way to a train.

Highlights

  • The cathedral tower, 538 steps, and a flat top where a record-breaking spire was meant to go
  • A carillon played from a keyboard by hand, from the school that taught half the world's carillonneurs
  • The Dossin memorial, facing the barracks the transports left from
  • The court where Charles V grew up, still standing on an ordinary shopping street
  • Gouden Carolus, brewed in the old beguinage quarter and named after the emperor

Where to stay

Mechelen, two nights in the centre

Stay inside the ring of canals that marks the old walls, ideally within five minutes of the Grote Markt, and nothing here needs transport. Rooms are cheaper than Antwerp and much cheaper than Bruges for a comparable standard.

Weekends are lively and weekdays are very quiet. This is a town where a good deal shuts on Sunday and Monday, so check the museum days before fixing the order of yours.

Day by day

Day 1 in Mechelen

The tower, the square and the timber houses

Everything on the first afternoon is within three hundred metres of the square, and the tower is the thing to do while your legs are still fresh.

It is a strange building. The plan was for a spire that would have made it the tallest tower in Europe; the money ran out in the 1520s and the top was simply left flat, which is why the thing looks like it is waiting for something. The climb ends on a glass floored platform where you can see Brussels and Antwerp on a clear day.

  1. 14:30

    St. Rumbold's Cathedral

    Other

    A late Gothic cathedral with a tower that stops 97 metres up, well short of the 167 metres drawn for it, and a skywalk of 538 steps to the top. Inside are a carved oak pulpit of 1723, late medieval triptychs and a van Dyck crucifixion. Two carillons hang in the tower, one of them still played by hand.

  2. 16:30

    Market Square

    Other

    The cathedral closes one end and the city hall the other, and the hall is two unfinished buildings side by side: a 14th century cloth hall with a stump of a belfry, and a palace begun in 1526 for a council that moved to Brussels before the roof went on. The terraces between them fill the moment the sun comes out.

  3. 17:30

    16th-century houses

    Visit

    Three timber-framed houses from the 16th century, with carved fronts, standing on a street corner five minutes from the square. They are privately owned, so the visit is the outside of them, and they are the last of what most of this town looked like before brick took over.

  4. 18:30

    Brewery Het Anker

    Eat

    A brewery in the beguinage quarter with a bar attached, making a dark strong ale named for Charles V and a jenever alongside it. Tours run at weekends and need booking; the bar does not. The beer chocolates are better than they sound.

  5. Dinner on the Grote Markt

    Eat

    The square is ringed with kitchens and the standard is decent rather than remarkable. Expect a Dutch menu, ask for a translation, and order the stew cooked in the local brown beer if it is on.

With more time: If the weather is poor, the toy museum ten minutes east is much better than the name suggests, three floors of it, and the tapestry works in the old abbey refuge open for a guided visit on Saturday mornings, where you can watch weavers restoring pieces sent from museums abroad.

Day 2 in Mechelen

The Burgundian court, and the barracks

Today runs north from the square through the quarter where the court used to be, and ends at the hardest and most important building in the city. Put the palace first and the memorial after lunch: the order matters more than the distance, which is ten minutes.

Allow two hours at Dossin and expect to be quiet afterwards. It is a museum about how ordinary administration made deportation possible, and it stands directly across the street from the yard where the trains were loaded.

  1. 10:00

    Palace of Busleyden

    Visit

    The Renaissance courtyard house of Hieronymus van Busleyden, friend of Erasmus and More, rebuilt after the war and reopened in 2018 as the city museum. It tells Mechelen at its height, when this was the seat of the Burgundian court, through tapestry, painting and the objects of a court that ran the Low Countries from a provincial town.

  2. 12:00

    Lunch before the memorial

    Eat

    Eat in the streets between the museum and the canal rather than after the barracks. Nobody wants a restaurant conversation immediately afterwards.

  3. 13:30

    Dossin Barracks

    Visit

    Between 1942 and 1944 more than twenty-five thousand Jews and several hundred Roma were assembled in the barracks opposite this building and sent by rail to Auschwitz. Barely a thousand came back. The museum, opened in 2012, follows the mechanics of it: the lists, the offices, the neighbours, and the individual faces on a four storey wall of photographs.

  4. 16:15

    Beguinage Church

    Visit

    The beguinage quarter west of the barracks is a grid of quiet brick lanes with a heavy baroque church at the middle of it, two saints carved over the door. Walking back through here is the right way to end the afternoon.

With more time: With children, the science museum south of the town and the animal park at Muizen are both a short bus ride away and both are among the best of their kind in the country; the zoo in particular is set up for a full day rather than an afternoon.

Day 3 in Mechelen

The regent's palace, a Rubens, and the train

The last morning is two buildings and a walk south to the station, and neither building takes long.

The palace on the Keizerstraat looks like nothing from the street, which is exactly the point: for a quarter of a century the Netherlands were governed from behind that front door, and the courtyard behind it is open to anyone who pushes the gate.

  1. 10:00

    Palace of Margaret of Austria

    Visit

    The house Margaret of Austria built for herself in 1507 as regent of the Netherlands, one of the first Renaissance buildings north of the Alps and now a law court. The offices are not open but the arcaded courtyard and its garden are, and they take five minutes and cost nothing.

  2. 11:00

    St. Jean Church

    Visit

    A plain church three minutes north with a Rubens triptych of the Adoration of the Magi above the high altar, painted in 1619 and still in its frame. Free, usually empty, and lit by a coin box on the wall.

  3. 12:00

    The walk to the station

    Note

    Fifteen minutes south through the shopping streets, or a bus from the square. Trains to Brussels, the airport and Antwerp all run several times an hour, so there is no need to allow slack.

With more time: If you have longer, the park west of the centre is a full formal garden with a rose collection that is worth the twenty minute walk in June, and the canal path around the old walls makes a flat circuit of the whole town in about an hour.

Before you go

Getting in and getting around

Mechelen sits on the main line between Brussels and Antwerp: 25 minutes from either, several times an hour, and about 20 minutes from Brussels Airport with no change. That makes it as easy a base as anywhere in Belgium and considerably cheaper than both of its neighbours.

The station is 15 minutes' walk south of the market square, or a short bus ride. Inside the old town everything is walking distance and mostly flat, and the streets around the Grote Markt are closed to traffic.

The town is small enough that no bus or bike is needed for anything below, though the zoo and the science museum on the outskirts are both easier with the local bus.

Bells, and when to hear them

Mechelen takes carillon seriously in a way no other town does. The school here has been training players since the 1920s and the cathedral tower carries one of the great instruments, played by hand from a keyboard of wooden levers rather than by a machine.

There are recitals through the summer, usually on a fixed evening each week, and the ordinary practice sessions are audible across the centre for nothing. If you want the tower climb and the bells at the same time, ask at the tourist office which afternoons the players are up there.

Beer, and the emperor's name on it

Het Anker brews in the old beguinage quarter and its strongest beer is named after Charles V, who grew up two streets away. The brewery does tours, has a bar and a shop, and makes a whisky in the same buildings; it is the one industrial visit in town worth the time.

Otherwise the eating and drinking is unfussy and local. Menus are often in Dutch only, staff will translate cheerfully, and the market square terraces are the obvious place to sit when the weather allows.

Mechelen is what a European capital looks like when history moves on and leaves the buildings behind. A tower too big for the town, a palace on a shopping street, eight churches for eighty thousand people, and the bells over all of it several times a day.

It also holds a memorial that matters more than any of that, ten minutes from the square, and the town does not hide it. Between the two, this is a small place that gives you more to think about than most large ones.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Is Mechelen worth two nights?
It is if you want a Flemish town without the crowds, and if you intend to give Dossin the time it deserves. If your only interest is the tower and the market square, this is a very good day trip from Brussels or Antwerp and you should treat it as one.
How hard is the tower climb?
538 steps, a spiral staircase of varying width, and several stops on the way up with something to look at. It is a real climb rather than a stroll, and there is no lift. The platform at the top has a glass floor, which some people would rather have been told about first.
Should I take children to the Dossin museum?
The museum sets its own guidance and it is aimed at older children and adults. The subject is handled directly, with photographs and personal documents rather than reconstruction, and it is not something to walk into unprepared. The zoo at Muizen exists for the rest of the family.
Is Mechelen a good base for Belgium?
A surprisingly good one. Brussels, Antwerp and the airport are each around twenty-five minutes, Leuven and Ghent under an hour, and the rooms cost a good deal less than in any of them. The trade is that the evenings are quiet.
Do people speak English?
Widely, though less automatically than in Bruges or Brussels, and menus are often in Dutch only. Nobody minds translating, and a word or two of Dutch goes further here than it does in a tourist town.