III.

Places of Interest

Among the outstanding features of Antwerp is its system of boulevards, which replaced the walls that formerly encircled the city. The magnificent Gothic cathedral of Notre Dame (14th and 15th century), surmounted by a spire 121.9 m (400 ft) high, is the largest church in Belgium. The cathedral contains several paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, who spent most of his life in Antwerp. Other landmarks include the town hall and the Gothic church of St Paul, both completed in the 16th century, as well as the many medieval guild houses that still line the marketplace. The city has a museum of fine arts with paintings by several of the Flemish masters, and there are botanical and zoological gardens. The Plantin-Moretus Museum, one of Europe’s leading printing and publishing houses in the 16th century, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005.