This is the Cathedral of our Lady. It is a gorgeous Roman Catholic cathedral that was started in 1352 and construction stopped in 1551, it was never officially completed. The church is also home to several works of art by Peter Paul Rubens as well as Otto Van Veen, Jacob de Backer, and Martin de Vos. If you would like a more official, wider history than what I will give click here. Otherwise, you will just hear about how pretty everything is!
This is the beautiful main part of the church. It has so much natural light coming in from the above windows it was very pleasant. They also had a huge organ. I am a big fan of beautiful organs, which makes me wonder why I didn’t get a picture of it. If you want to hear the organ music play, you can click here which will take you to Kelly’s blog (I just learned she won't be posting the organ music until tomorrow, but there is a video of the bells playing, which is enjoyable as well). She has a great video of it…and her feet. Kelly and I went to church here on Sunday morning. I am not Catholic, but Kelly is and I figured, why not? It is such a pretty place, I can sit there and listen to God’s word in Dutch…maybe Flemish…for an hour and listen to pretty music. We wanted to go to the earlier service with choir and organ, but we didn’t make it. We could handle the 12 o’clock service though! It was so pleasant!
This was the mural at the top of the dome above the alter/center of the church area. It was so pretty, and the use of natural light is just amazing. A lot of times these old churches are so dark but this one was so light! It was also undergoing a major renovation to restore a lot of the building. It had gone through multiple wars, a fire, and a looting. I guess they figured it needed a bit of TLC. There was also an exhibit that displayed part of the original alters that was stolen back in 1600 or 1800, a long time ago, and then they surfaced again for auction at Christy’s in London. The city of Antwerp had to raise the money to buy the pieces back. There were 4 on action and they were able to acquire 2 of them and then got a 3rd piece later. It is sad/interesting how these historic relics were stolen so long ago, and kept, then passed through the generations, only to show up a few hundred years later at private auction. I’m not sure what I would do with a large chunk of stone alter if my parents left it to me. I guess that’s why they have survived…generations just got a big yard ornament passed along.
I’m not sure what this is used for, but it’s in every Catholic Church. Kelly said she thinks it’s for when important, higher ranking Catholic officials visit to observe the ceremony. It sounds like a good explanation so I’m going with it. It is so ornate and so much detail….all carved from wood. These ancient artists are amazing. I would never have enough patience to work on such an extensive piece or have so little room for error. You screw up a giant marble sculpture, you’re starting over. No thank you, I’ll take a pencil and eraser any day!
These two pictures are of the pretty alter and candle sticks. I have a thing for candle sticks, I don't know why but I like them. This is candle sticks on steroids.
So after church, Kelly and I were hungry so we went in search of a cute place on the square. Kelly has dubbed our restaurant search “Restaurant Roulette” because we have no real method besides how they look and how many people are there. Our travel book said the top 10 things to buy in Antwerp are (I can’t remember the order exactly): diamonds, chocolate, lace, shell fish, tintin (A cartoon we think), pastries, fries, waffles, beer, and coture. Well shell fish seemed like an easy one to accomplish so for lunch that’s exactly what I had. And what better to accompany mussels? French Fries!
I bet you can't guess what we had for dessert...a waffle! They are just such tasty treats! It was hard to not get one. One of the guys at work told us they were gross. We promptly informed him, when we got back, that he was a liar. They are a little slice of heaven.
After lunch Kelly and I headed to the diamond district. Our waiter had told us about the diamond museum so we headed that direction. It was next to the train station. I don’t think it was a coincidence that the diamond square mile developed around the train station. I learned, in the museum, people didn’t consider it safe to walk long distances with diamonds on their persons. Smart people. The museum is interesting, but I would not recommend it, well, recommend spending lots of time there. It did give the history of diamonds and neat facts, such as that 80% of the worlds diamonds go through Antwerp at least once in its life time either as a rough cut or gem stone. The museum is only 4 Euros but the layout was so weird and hard to follow. I have definitely seen better arrangements. We were also disappointed because it didn’t have all sorts of gems to see. It did give the story about a lot of the famous stones around the world, such as the Hope Diamond. Many of the other mentioned stones are in the Tower of London as part of the Crown Jewels. It would be nice to see the stone and get the story at the same time.
After spending about 2 hours at the museum, we decided we should go window shopping. We had no intentions of buying anything but to just look. There are store after store after store of pretty lights and sparkles. Kelly has been looking at some pretty rings for awhile now and we thought we should do some price comparison and see if being in the diamond capital had its advantages or not. She is far more diamond knowledgeable than I am, which is why I appreciate her company even more.
I had a favorite pair of “diamond” earrings that I always got complements on. Well, they are fake and so old, they turn my ears green. So I started looking at earrings….and looking and looking. We went into this one place and the sales lady was good. She was very aggressive, but nice and personable. I can appreciate a good sales person. So I found a cute pair, bought them, and was happy. Then, she pulled out a box from under the counter and there were matching rings! Now, if I have the earrings, I have to have the matching ring! The fun thing about shopping there, there is a bit of “haggling” that goes one. Some leeway with which credit card you use to pay….or in cash…so we had fun working her down on the price and I’m sure she enjoyed the game. It’s all part of the sport of selling. By the time it was all said and done, I have a new ring and matching earrings. Below is the picture of my new bling. I feel it is an appropriate diamond ring to be buying myself. I’ll start small and let someone else buy me the big rock. I love my new jewelry and have ZERO buyers’ remorse. I probably would have regretted it if I didn’t get anything. It’s still so sparkly! I love it!
We didn't end up leaving Antwerp till about 8pm after diamond shopping and eating. We still had a 2 hour drive home, so to say the least, it was a long day and Monday came too early! Kelly and I are still recovering. We better recover fast because we leave for Paris on Friday! Woo Hoo!
For your enjoyment: Here is a video of a neat group who was singing to raise moeny for Haiti. They were infront of the Cathedral of our Lady. It was a lot of fun to wach them and they were so happy and lively and it was sunny out so the joy was easily spread. I hope you enjoy the little snippit!
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