Antwerp, Part 1

Welcome to Antwerp! This past weekend has been super exciting and very, very busy. I’m not really sure how and where to start blogging about this, so I’m going to try and break it up into days. So, we’ll start with our first day there, Saturday. I would like to also add that we had fantastic weather for the entire 2 days we were there (unless otherwise stated). It was cold, but sunny. We even got to wear our sunglasses!

We got a bit of a late start but it only took us 1.5 hours to drive there and another ½ hour to find our hotel. We got a little lost, but once we found it, it was really easy. We stayed at a safe Holiday inn Express which had parking so that was helpful. It also wasn’t as close to the city center as I would have liked, but we didn’t want to spend the money so we helped improve our legs. After a 20 minute walk, we found the city center with their gorgeous church. This is a teaser photo, I will cover the church more in my next posting.

They have a pretty market area with little shops and restaurants all over. It’s unusual because their market area is L shaped and has a big fountain that the water just flows out onto the cobblestones. Since it was cold there wasn’t any flowing water. The thought is nice though. This picture is of the town hall. Another pretty building in an ancient European town.

Everyone in Holland that we told we were going to Antwerp always gave us a funny look and basically told us we were wasting our time. Well, they were all wrong! We had so much fun! We got a small snack/lunch after we got to the square to take a bit of a breather and relax after our hotel search and walk. We also started the shopping extravaganza. We found a precious store that sells lace (and on sale) so I got some white linen place mats and matching napkins for my future table setting of 6. They will go great with my Delft Blue plates I bought years ago (and we learned they no longer make) and my Delft blue vase that is still in route to my mother’s house. Kelly is a fantastic shopper and a girl after my own heart. We both have a taste for nice things, and we generally encourage each other to make the purchase of the nice timeless pieces. So after consulting with Kelly on the matter, I’ve almost got my table setting complete so maybe I can find some nice wine glasses somewhere and have a worldly table. I’ll have to keep my eyes peeled.

This is a picture of the guildhouses on the square. They are so pretty and classic. I think I could handle living on one!

I wanted to take another picture of the pretty houses because I like the architecture so much.

The below picture is of Steen castle. It’s right on the water of the Schelde River that flows through the city and was once used to control the river. Between 1303 and 1827 it was used as a prison which more pertained to a holding area for someone awaiting sentencing rather than a punishment location. It wasn’t fair either; the rich were kept in the right wing and the poor in the left wing. A lot of it was torn down to finish connecting the roadways that is the modern city but the castle still stands and has been renovated. It is currently closed because it was a museum that has since moved to a new location. To my knowledge, there isn’t a future use for it…yet but hopefully they will find one. It is a neat building!!

Well the castle was on the river, a 15 min walk or so from the Grote Markt (city center). We thought we would take another street and make a bit of a loop back to the center. Oh boy did we embark on an adventure! Shortly after leaving the safety of the tourism trap we headed back on this empty street. We did not see this as a warning sign because it seemed that the only streets that had people on them was the shopping street and the center. The big yellow (on the map) street we always walked on was awkwardly empty compared to what other city streets are like, so it seemed normal to us. Well as our walking progressed, we noticed a scantily clad woman in the window. This was not an area we really wanted to explore so we took the next street over and figured that would fix it. Kelly and I were deeply engrossed in our conversation and didn’t notice anything until we realized that there were a lot of men on the street. All of the sudden we looked up and we were surrounded by more women in windows. They were everywhere! Kelly and I were the only 2 non-working women on the street. So we started to walk faster as we were nervously laughing about the situation and realized that this could quite possibly be the longest street in Antwerp. It never ended! There were old men, young men, dirty men, all walking, window shopping, and checking prices. It was definitely not my cup of tea.

The street finally ended so we kept heading in what we thought was the right direction until we emerged on the main street not too far from our hotel. We were happy to know where we were, and be off the dirty street, but we were now a 15 min walk in the wrong direction of where we wanted to be after a good 30 min walk to get there. We had seen a Mexican restaurant earlier and were dying for a margarita so that was our goal. Find the flag (they had it hanging outside of the restaurant). We finally found it, and ordered a great margarita and a quesadilla as an appetizer. There was a cute, blond Belgian waiter who worked for his uncle who has been to Mexico. We told the waiter he needed to go as part of business development and research. He agreed. We then proceeded to take a variety of pictures and have a delicious steak. Kelly got an enchilada which was really a burrito. They had the two confused. We figured we would let them figure it out. The place even had sombreros! So they had us take a picture with the hats. I figured I wouldn’t mention that I had taken a picture very similar to this in real Mexico not too long ago. We all had a good time!

They also had these adorable cacti dressed up as little whiskered creatures so I had to take a picture with them.

Cheers to you Antwerp! A great restaurant with a great margarita. There really isn't too much better than that....especially after getting lost in the red light district!

After the Mexican food, we heard about a cute pub/restaurant called Het Elfde Gebod. It is decked out in all religious statues. They wouldn't let us in if we didn't eat something, so we told them we wanted to eat. He was dissapointed that we just wanted dessert. I don't think he liked us. The desert wasn't even very good. Great presentation, but it ended there. My cream brulee tasted like flan...which isn't bad, but it wasn't cream brulee. We wanted to go to another little bar that was mentioned in our book, but we couldn't find it on the map or via Google maps on my phone. It had started to snow pretty heavily that night so we didn't really want to wonder around lost in the cold, wet weather. We started walking direction of home and saw an Irish Pub so we had to go in.

It was so quaint and they had live music! There was a guy singing named Taco who wore square toed boot. He had a cute irish accent and sang great classics so we could all sing along! We had great beer and great music. It's hard to ask for much more on a Saturday night. We eventually found our way home after a few hours of singing. It had stopped snowing by the time we headed home so that was helpful. Our poor legs were so tired from walking loops around the city, it felt great to crash into bed.

That was day 1 - Antwerp. Stay tuned for day 2 - Antwerp (The day we went diamond shopping).