Antwerp

Well, here we are, back on home soil and it feels good.  In fact it seems odd to look at these pictures and think that we were really there two weeks ago.

This is the train station in Antwerp, it was stunningly magnificent.

This was in the town square, it seemed as if he had lost a bet of some sort, I have no idea what he was doing but it was quite entertaining.

 

Can you tell which one of the statues below is a real dude?

 

The one on the far right, it was pretty impressive!

And below, whatever you do, do NOT sit on the fake cow!

We went to see Rubens' house (we saw many Rubens' paintings in many different churches while we were there).  I love when they have artists' houses set up as a museum, somehow it gives me the best understanding for who they were because you can see how they organized their lives and what they used for inspiration.

I enjoy art even if I often find it inaccessible, seeing the way the artist lived somehow makes it more more immediately accessible to me.

 

I loved the gardens best, I just love sculpted gardens like this.

One of the MANY rainy days we had while we were there.

We saw many, many very old cathedrals and they were all gorgeous.  How can one country have so many cathedrals that after 4 or 5 days you start thinking "really?  ANOTHER 13th century cathedral?  I bet this one will look EXACTLY like the last one..."

We took a bus ride (very brave of us, we thought) out to the country side to visit a monastery cafe where we could sample a beer straight from the source (Westmalle) and got stuck there briefly because we didn't understand the bus signs.  We stood 20 feet down the road where the glass area with seating was instead of at the little yellow temporary sign - the bus literally drove by us and the driver waved his hands at us - sometimes it's a pain to be in a place where you don't understand the rules.  But we passed the time by talking to the cows, and as cows are curious creatures they amused us by wandering over and watching us for another 45 minutes until the NEXT bus went by and we were in fact standing in the proper pick up spot.

 

It's hard to summarize such a long trip with a handful of pictures and a few anecdotes (antidotes anyone?), but there is antwerp in a nutshell.  We were there for 2.5 days and we saw MOST of what we wanted to see,  and before we knew it we were packing our bags for Ghent and walking back to the train station!

Comments

[suzygirl]

What great photos!

[jennygirl]

Beautiful pictures. It looks like you had a great time.
Maybe that guy in the chicken suit is on the Amazing race!

[Jocelyn]

I love adventures in the rain -- maybe I'm weird, but it looks like you guys are having a wonderful time!! (How was that beer, btw? Inquiring minds, and all...)

[Julia]

Beautiful and amazing that these places look so... Antwerp'ish! I got a little brush of feeling like I was there from your pics and comments. Thanks!