For the Flows summer series 2024, we are looking for stories of people from the maritime and logistics world who have a special passion or hobby. Each week, you will also see an episode of ‘Geerts en de Schelde’, in which Marc Geerts takes us through the rich history of the port of Antwerp.
Entrepreneur Marc Geerts passed on his transport company to his three sons and has since thrown himself into his new career as a city guide in Antwerp. From there, the idea was born to create a reportage series for Flows, in which Marc Geerts takes us through the rich history of the Antwerp port.
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. I wanted to check in that way whether those stories were true.”
Together with Marc Geerts, Flows canned the reportage series ‘Geerts & de Schelde’, which gives you an insight into the origins of the Antwerp port. In eight short episodes, Geerts looks back, in his own style, at some of the key moments in Antwerp’s history that made the port evolve into the world port it is today.
International trade metropolis on the Scheldt
In the second episode of ‘Geerts & the Scheldt’, Marc Geerts starts at the Old Stock Exchange. This building from 1485 was used to trade spices, among other things, which was mainly done in the open air. Given Antwerp’s success as a trading metropolis in the 16th century, a new stock exchange was built in 1531: the Handelsbeurs. For half a century, the Handelsbeurs was to be the focal point of European trade.
To facilitate the flourishing trade, three filled-in harbour canals or ‘vlieten’ were constructed – due to a severe shortage of loading and unloading berths for large ships: the Brouwersvliet, Middelvliet and Timmervliet. Besides a glimpse into Antwerp’s Golden Age, you will also find out in this new episode of ‘Geerts en de Schelde’ why Antwerp is actually called ‘Koekenstad’.
Did you miss the first episode of ‘Geerts en de Schelde’? No problem. You can watch it here.
