From Sunday 7 July 2024, our Flows summer series will start. This year, we are looking for stories of people from the maritime and logistics world who have a special passion or hobby. Marc Geerts passed on his transport company to his three sons last year and has since thrown himself into his new career as a city guide in Antwerp.
Every week during the summer months, you will get to see an episode of ‘Geerts en de Schelde’, in which Marc Geerts takes us through the rich history of the port of Antwerp.
Geerts could listen for hours to his great-grandparents’ stories about the two world wars. “My great-grandmother was born in 1896 and she still knew stories of her grandparents who had lived before Belgium’s independence,” he says. “I was enormously fascinated and gradually started looking up more and more information about this in history books. That way, I wanted to check whether those stories were true,” he says.
Dining in Antwerp
When Geerts later started working as a sales manager in his father’s transport company ‘Corneel Geerts’, he sometimes invited customers to dine in Antwerp. “On the way to the restaurant, we would often walk past some top monuments, such as the Steen, the cathedral or the city hall. I would then look up in advance what I could tell my guests about those buildings. That’s how I became more and more interested in Antwerp’s history, and at the same time my clients returned home with a wow feeling and stories about my city of Antwerp,” he says.
For Geerts, who had been CEO of the transport company since 2004, the corona period from 2020 to 2022 meant that things were a bit quieter in the business. “I then started reading more history books and also often went cycling around Antwerp during the lockdowns. In 2023, I then decided to hand over the business to my three sons, giving me even more time to throw myself at guiding and my passion for Antwerp’s history.”
Theme walks
Geerts had also been advised by his doctor to exercise more. “Going back to playing squash or tennis was out of the question,” he says. “My knees are really worn out. So I decided to guide groups and organise teambuildings in Antwerp.”
“The first walk – themed ‘the history of Antwerp’ – that I organised was the easiest,” he says. “In the meantime, I have developed numerous themed walks. So I also organise maritime walks or a walk about fashion, the diamond sector, Antwerp beers, the great Antwerp painters such as Rubens, Jordaens or Van Dijck. The walks often take you to places you’ve never been to even as a born and bred Antwerper.”
Geerts & The Scheldt
Together with Marc Geerts, Flows has canned the reportage series ‘Geerts & De Schelde’ that gives you an insight into the origins of the port of Antwerp. In eight short episodes, Geerts looks back, in his own style, at a number of key moments in Antwerp’s history that made the port evolve into the world port it is today. You can watch the first episode exclusively via Flows on Sunday 7 July 2024. The trailer below will warm you up for our summer series:
