Antwerp

Antwerp is really not very far from Brussels.

Okay, so I know Belgium is a small country. But I didn’t appreciate how small? We were up and back at the airport by 7:30 this morning, picking up our car and on our way out of Brussels in no time. Even with rush hour traffic, we were only about 45 minutes to get Antwerp. Which was good because Antwerp was the day I worried the most about not having enough time to see everything. But we got the car parked near the hotel and managed to get the train station and entryway to the zoo in before anything really opened. And yes, I wanted to see the train station and the entry to the zoo. The Antwerp train station is pretty consistently ranked as one of the most beautiful train station in the world. It lived up to the expectations. The main part of the station was stunning but even the tracks were nice. The tracks stack on top of each other instead of spreading out - so the bottom level was the metro and then there was floor above that with tracks, then a floor that looked like it was just shopping and then a very top floor, which looked like it had the international trains? Regardless, it was really, really nice. And so was the entry to the zoo.

From there, we went to Rubenhuis, the house of Rubens. You often hear about famous artists dying penniless (Rembrandt, Vermeer, Cezanne…) but Rubens clearly did just fine while he was alive. His house was enormous. It started as just a normal house but then he kept buying the properties around him to expand his house. He was a fan of Italy and created a big Italian-style garden, which was lovely. I think we were through Rembrandt’s house in about 20 minutes when we visited it a few years back but Rubens’ took us much longer.

Then, it was off to Museum Plantin-Moretus, which was freaking awesome. Plantin was a book printer, at one point, the largest in the world - the museum was his family home and printing office. He was wildly successful and the business stayed in the family for 300+ years. We saw some of the oldest printing presses in the world, along with the type cases where all the letters were held (including the font that would eventually become Times New Roman!) plus the most amazing books. We saw a 36-line Gutenberg bible, one of 14 remaining in the world, and the first atlas. It was so incredible, it’s easily been my favourite part of the trip and one of the highlights of all of our travels.

After that, it was on to Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal, a cathedral that has nothing to do with St. Catherine, no matter how much EDP tries to insist otherwise. It held some early Rubens and had a small area where you could see the foundation of the first of the churches that were on the spot. After lunch, we headed to St-Jacobskerk, which is mostly closed for renovations & restorations but we were still able to see some it, including Rubens’ tomb with the painting he did specifically for it.

Our final stop for the day was De Ruien, a walking tour in the city’s original sewers. Antwerp, like Bruges, originally had canals, which fed drinking water to the residents. But they also used it to get rid of their waste so after a while, everyone started dying of cholera and they thought maybe they should end the practice. So the canals were covered! And we took a walk in them. The tour was 90 minutes and about 1.5 km long but it really didn’t need to be. When we did the underground in Naples, we saw lots of different types of tunnels and rooms and I had high hopes for something similar here. But it was just all the same. Had we realized, we probably would have passed.

With our sights all seen, we headed to our hotel for a few minutes, where I left EDP to dash over to the Chocolate Line, as recommended by Charlotte. I was fairly restrained, as by now, my suitcase is 90% chocolate. But I am pretty excited for what appears to be the world’s most expensive gourmet Twix bar.

Our final stop for the day was dinner, just steps down the street from the hotel at a charming little place called de Arme Duivel. I had cheese croquettes (duh…) and EDP had boar. Both were incredible. I ended with a dame Blanche, which is basically just an ice cream sundae but it’s on the menu EVERYWHERE so I figured I should have at least one. It was a pretty good ice cream sundae.

Tomorrow, we make our way to Bruges, stopping in a few little towns along the way. It’s supposed to rain all day, so a good day to be in the car.