A small but enjoyable museum located in one of the 3 old townhalls of Mechelen that dates back to…read morethe end of the 13th century. And it's free! The building itself is already worth a visit: it was originally the place where the town elders met, but it later became the location of the parliament of the Netherlands (when it was still 17 provinces together with Holland, Luxemburg and Northern France). The museum has a small but exquisite collection of polychromed wooden statuettes of St Mary and saints dating to the 16th century and a unique collection of beguinage art (the "hofkens" or "little gardens") - triptyches that were partly painted, partly decorated by the "beguines". Hard to explain and I didn't have a camera with me!

Strange! I live in this town for ages and I never saw this meseum before, and my sons who still ive…read morether had never heard of it. It is a small one - once more ina beautiful old house in the Katelijne Street - the one you need to take to go and visit the "Groot Begijnhof". It concentrates on the work of the "mad" Flemish painters from the 16th century and their offspring (Breughel, Brouwers, Bosch and some others) and has some nice originals that were unknown to me (next to some copies, but OK, this is a small and cheap museum!) All in all, you can do the round of the museum in about half an hour for 3EUR: a very good offer indeed..