Antwerp

Saturday 25 to Monday 27 April 2015

What can one say about Antwerp? We had read that it was a somewhat uninspiring business center, that it was a trendy party town, that it was full of tourists from visiting river boat cruises, that the architecture was magnificent/drab, that Ghent was a much nicer place.

I’m not sure about Ghent but for us Antwerp was all the other comments combined and we loved it!

I will not go into too much detail but will let a couple of pictures tell the story…

Our mooring...

Ian relaxing.

Lynn's nemesis

...was a stone's throw from the huge, red clad Museum aan de Stroom which we never got to visit as it was closed the day we had planned to do so...

...500m from the historical Pilotage building with its war memorial frontage...

...1.1kms from the medieval fort Het Steen - ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Het_Steen ) which is now a tour ticket office with an adjoining ship museum...

...and only 1.1kms from the Grote Markt with its beflagged Ruihuis and nearby Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedral - the area where everything happens.

Belfy of the Onze-Liewe-Vrouwekathedral which dominates the Antwerp skyline

Sculpture at the base of the church.

Antwerp Central Station was the furthest landmark away at 2.1kms.

We even paid a visit to the 'Exotic Market' on Theaterplein.

As there were so many tour groups lining up to visit the spectacular Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedral we decided to give this a miss and opted instead to visit the Church of St Charles Borromeus (Sint-Carolus Borromeuskerk) which was beautiful; a baroque construction built in the 17th century, it at one time housed many of Ruben's works, 39 of which were destroyed in a 1718 fire started by a lightning strike. The church has only one Ruben's left in its possession and this was being restored 

while we were there.

Exquisite marble filigree.

What else did we do?

We ate and drank...

Bottertert at the Station

'n Kleintjie met stoofsous.

...walked the famous shopping boulevard Meirstraat...

PP Rubens admiring S Cullen.

...and watched the sights of Antwerp.

Not sure this is what  would call my business...

On Monday evening we heard live music coming from a nearby street so we wandered over only to find that the band had packed up and there was just a crowd drinking at a little pub, so we walked back to Elle. As we arrived back the music started up again and shortly afterwards we saw Ian and Sian sauntering off in the same direction but the same thing happened to them – the music stopped and the band were packing up! Ten minutes later the music started up again and Ian and I decided to head across the dock without delay. We discovered that it was someones birthday and he had booked out the whole pub and had arranged for a couple of bands to do a few gigs. What had happened to us was that each time we decided to have a look-see at what was happening, the band we were hearing finished their gig and the new one had not set up yet.

Anyway, we bought a beer and spent half an hour listening to a band playing mostly traditional, folksy music with choruses lustily joined in by the somewhat inebriated but very friendly crowd. Good fun!

And so endeth the chapter on Antwerp.