Speelkaartmuseum

Northeast Belgium

LoginSave

Celebrating Turnhout’s role as one of the world’s largest producers of playing cards (1.3 million packs per day), this extensive museum displays a range of antique industrial printing machines used in card creation, including a vast steam-powered drive wheel.

The guillotine draws attention to French revolutionary times when anti-royalist sentiment went as far as to remove kings and queens from the pack. The newest exhibits show 21st-century technological advances including UV-sensitive inks for clarity in low light.

Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

  • Museum Plantin-Moretus

    Museum Plantin-Moretus

    25.02 MILES

    The medieval building and 1622 courtyard garden alone would be worth a visit, but it's the world's oldest printing press, priceless manuscripts and…

  • Belgium, Antwerp, garden in Peter Paul Ruben's house

    Rubenshuis

    24.58 MILES

    This delightfully indulgent 1611 mansion was built as a home and studio for celebrated painter Pieter Paul Rubens. It was rescued from ruins in 1937 and…

  • Interiors of Notre dame d'Anvers cathedral, Anvers, Belgium

    Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal

    24.85 MILES

    Belgium’s finest Gothic cathedral was 169 years in the making (1352–1521). Wherever you wander in Antwerp, its gracious, 123m-high spire has a habit of…

  • St-Romboutskathedraal

    St-Romboutskathedraal

    28.78 MILES

    This soaring, Gothic-vaulted cathedral features a 1723 monumental pulpit, a 1630 Van Dyck crucifixion scene in the south transept, and dozens more fine…

  • St Janskathedraal

    St Janskathedraal

    29.73 MILES

    One of the finest churches in the Netherlands, this cathedral took from 1336 to 1550 to complete. The interior has late-Gothic stained-glass windows, an…

  • Efteling

    Efteling

    21.68 MILES

    Is Efteling Europe's greatest theme park? The Dutch certainly think so. Their 'Disneyland' pulls in more than four million visitors annually and offers a…

  • Philips Museum

    Philips Museum

    24.11 MILES

    From Keith Richards' tape-recorder to a wide-screen projector that once won an Oscar, this engaging museum tells the extraordinary story of the light-bulb…

  • St-Katharinabegijnhof

    St-Katharinabegijnhof

    23.47 MILES

    Centred on a 14th-century church and sporting a few artists’ studio-galleries, this picturesque village-within-a-village is a five-street grid of lovely…

View more attractions

Nearby Northeast Belgium attractions

1. Turnhout Castle

0.39 MILES

Turnhout was founded as an 11th-century hunting retreat for the Hertog (Duke) of Brabant. By the 13th century their lodge had developed into the moated…

2. Taxandria

0.41 MILES

Guarded by a cannon, the spired, 16th-century Matten Thoren mansion hosts this lovable city history museum whose mishmash of art and artefacts range from…

3. Turnhout Begijnhof

0.49 MILES

Hidden behind big wooden gates, one of Belgium’s loveliest begijnhoven loops round a long, narrow garden set with a grotto, church and religious statues…

4. Begijnhof Museum

0.62 MILES

In a 1688 convent-house, this excellent little museum introduces the life of a begijn starting with an eight-minute video (English available) and a…

5. Baarle-Nassau

8.51 MILES

Together Baarle Nassau (NL) and Baarle Hertog (B) form an extraordinary geopolitical quirk divided by the world's messiest border jigsaw: 22 miniature…

6. St-Katherinakerk

9.93 MILES

Hoogstraten's fabulous belfry is an enormous 105m-tall red-brick edifice picked out with dots of white-stone detail in a style known as speklagen. Dating…

7. Laermolen

9.97 MILES

In an idyllic rural location on the northeast edge of town, Laermolen is small but still functioning watermill dating from 1381.

8. Hoogstraten Begijnhof

10 MILES

With two leafy quadrangles of pretty whitewashed houses and a remarkably oversized baroque chapel, this peaceful spot is one of Flanders' least-known…