Antwerp

Friday 20 July

This is another travelling day. We woke to another good breakfast. Cathy had kindly organised for Frank to drop the three of us at the station as the town was now fully closed off for the annual fair and parking was going to be problematic. We drank another Dutch coffee, and soon enough she had bundled us on our train bound for Antwerp. We needed to change trains at Rosendaal. Anyone who has travelled by train in Europe will realise that not every train station is blessed with escalators. So it was at Rosendaal, that we hauled our bags from Platform 1 to Platform 4, Although we arrived at an empty platform, within twenty minutes before the train appeared, the station had become packed with people. By the time the train pulled in we realised we were not going to get on as people were virtually hanging out the doors. Just as the doors were closing, a very kind man on the inside pointed out that another train would be leaving for Antwerp from Platform 1 in three minutes. So it was, we ventured again down a flight of stairs, under the tracks and up another flight of stairs hauling our bags just in time for a far more empty train to Antwerp.

The Linder Hotel is just behind the railway station…but we needed to first feast our eyes first on this amazing Railway building. The railway tracks are stacked four storeys high and the building itself is a wonderful blend of very old and very modern architecture.

After checking in, and finding we had vouchers to spend through town, we decided we would take a walk. Our route took us through the Jewish area, and down the main shopping street. It started to rain so we sheltered under a canopy and sampled our first Belgian waffle. As we walked further into the town and it got wetter and wetter, we decided it might be sensible to take a look through the cathedral. That was an excellent decision. We hadn’t done our homework so hadn’t realised this church was full of paintings by Rubens. Not only that but artwork also by  Otto van Veen, Jacob de Backer and Marten de Vos, and wonderful carvings in both wood and stone.

 

We later walking into a medieval square, we found a bar which was offering us a free beer with another one of our vouchers. We decided to head back after this, stopping at the market for a few nibbles including cheeses, an olive bread, salami and wine.

Saturday 21 July

The Mas is a modern architecturally designed building and Antwerp’s Museum, housing artefacts and stories from her past. I was keen to see this side of town and delve a little into this place I really didn’t know very much about. We were not disappointed by this piece of architecture as shown by the zillions of photos we took.

 
The MAS  has the most extraordinary views from the rooftop. Here's a photo from about the third floor. We climbed to the 10th floor to see the whole town and enjoy views across the whole city.

Inside we discovered the rise of Antwerp in the Middle Ages, the fall from the Spaniards, the rise again with Napoleon and the building of her port during the 19^th century; then her massive destruction at the end of World War 2. This helped in part in understanding the strong contrasts in architecture you see here.

We decided to take a bus ride in the afternoon to a sculpture park advertised in the Mas. This meant a ride to the outskirts of town on a Number 17 bus, and the help of a bus driver to show us which way to walk for the next ten minutes.  The Middleheim Museum, is a huge outdoor museum with both very modern and very old sculpture. The weather had cleared and it was lovely to be out in the fresh air with so many stimulating sculptures.

We headed back to the hotel about 7pm and settled for a meal in and another relatively early night so that we would be prepared for our next adventure!