Hôtel Julien

As a holiday destination, Antwerp is one of Western Europe’s best-kept secrets — home to Europe’s diamond trade, Belgium’s second-largest city also happens to be its style capital, playing the fashionable foil to serious old Brussels and serving as the proving ground for a thriving Belgian design movement.

It’s only sensible, then, that Antwerp would be home to some interesting hotels; not flashy scene-making boutiques, but understated, quietly chic guest houses like the Hotel Julien, a twenty-two-room townhouse hotel located in the heart of the old city center, close to the Grote Markt and the Cathedral of Our Lady. Behind the historic facade, surrounding a peaceful inner courtyard, is the very picture of modern minimal hotel design as it should be done — nothing cold or stark, just clean lines, blonde wood, creamy neutral tones and heaping white beds. Bathrooms feature a little bit of white marble for the traditionalist in all of us, along with state-of-the-art modern fixtures and top-shelf bath products.

An impressive breakfast is included, and fresh coffee and light fare are on offer all day. There’s a roof terrace with a view of Antwerp’s cathedral, and a bar stocked with whiskies and Belgian beers, while a small spa occupies the building’s 16th-century cellars. Despite these well-chosen amenities, however, this is no five-star oasis, just a smart and comfortable place to drop your suitcase on the way out to see the Rubens museum or the boutiques of the Antwerp Six.