A bookshop inside a 13th-century Dominican church — regularly cited as one of the most beautiful bookshops in the world, and it is hard to argue. The nave is lined with multi-storey steel bookshelves that rise toward the Gothic vaulted ceiling, and a café occupies the former choir, where you can drink coffee beneath 14th-century frescoes.
The conversion, completed in 2006 by architect Merkx+Girod, is a masterclass in adaptive reuse: the ecclesiastical architecture is respected rather than overwhelmed, and the books feel at home among the columns and arches. The church had been deconsecrated for years and used as everything from a warehouse to a bicycle park before its transformation. On the Dominicanerkerkstraat, a short walk from the Vrijthof. Even if you don't buy a book, walk in and look up.