I wish I could say that we awoke to our second day in Belgium to sunshine and warm spring weather, but I can’t. It was another cold, windy day with occasional rain showers and near constant drizzle. Nevertheless, we had planned to spend the day in Antwerp so we set off to do just that.
Our first challenge was buying train tickets. With some help we were able to do that, but then we needed to know where to find the train. Someone else helped us with that. Unfortunately the train was late, and that created confusion, but we managed to jump onto the train at the last minute. The train wasn’t crowded at all so we had plenty of room to spread out.
Our next challenge was landing in Antwerp. It turns out the train we took stopped at the station just before the main station in Antwerp. We had to get off and transfer to another train for the final few minutes of our trip.
The Antwerp train station is an architectural beauty. I posted photos of it last year when my daughter Andrea and I spent an hour at the station waiting for our train to Amsterdam. This year I went outside so I was able to get a photo of the exterior not just the interior.
Heading out the door, there is a main street that leads into town. Unlike yesterday, Antwerp is easier to get around. There are less curved roads that can confuse one. This road from the train station led right into the heart of downtown. It was a busy road. Along the first section of road on our right as we walked were restaurants, one right after the other. Most had outdoor seating set up although no one was using that on this day.
After the restaurants were stores, many of them internationally known brands one could find in the US. These stores were at the bottom of rather old buildings in places. It seemed such an interesting juxtaposition to have these trendy modern stores inside buildings that could be hundreds of years old.
The street was also crowded. After the restaurant section, the city blocked off the main road to traffic so people walked in the street. Seemingly unaffected by the weather, a lot of people were out shopping and walking down this main drag. All the activity surprised me. Apparently Antwerp is a shopping destination.
Our first tourist stop was an old church built by the Jesuits between 1615 and 1621. St. Charles Borromeo Church has an interesting facade and faces a small plaza. I would have liked to have seen the interior, but it didn’t seem to be open.
From there we walked over to the tallest church in Antwerp, the Cathedral of Our Lady. The steeple is so tall that it is hard to get a photo of it. One has to move away some distance to get the whole front in. Unfortunately there is not enough room in front of the church to do this. We intended to go in, but they were charging 12 euros per person, 10 for seniors. I felt that was too much so we passed on that. In the plaza in front of the church was a fun and unexpected art piece.
Next we wandered over to the old town hall and the square in front of it. It seemed fairly similar to the one in Brussels, especially with some of the buildings having gold accents. A statue stands in the center of the courtyard. For some reason a fence surrounded it covered with information and advertisements. Perhaps they were doing some reconstruction work on the statue, but the whole picture was less inviting because of this fence.
From the town hall we made our way over to the Schelde River. We walked up to a lookout point where there was a large Ferris wheel. This seems to be the popular trend among cities now days. They are not advertised as entertainment activities, but as observation points. Those at the top of the Ferris wheel would have great views of the surrounding area. No we didn’t ride it, we had our own way of getting great views which I will explain later.
We walked along the water’s edge as I had read in my research about a tunnel that went under the river. By using a map, I was able to determine where it should be, but it wasn’t there. I spent probably ten minutes trying to find the entrance. It turned out the entrance was across the street.
The unique aspect of this tunnel is the escalator down to the tunnel. The escalator is very old, and the step where one stands is made of wooden slats. It takes two escalators to get down to the tunnel. We figured the tunnel was about a third of a mile long and then escalators take one up to the other side. This is not just a pedestrian route. Bicyclist also use it carefully getting their bikes onto the escalators.
From the other side of the river one has views of downtown Antwerp, but there is not much else to see on that side.
After we returned to the city area, we headed north to the docks. The city built a new museum there which is quite interesting. However, before we got there, I was distracted by another church. First I had to find the entrance, but eventually we made it into St. Paul’s Church. This church was started by the Dominican order and has had quite a few challenges over the years including a fire. Nevertheless the church continues.
The admission to enter the church was 5 euros, a more reasonable amount to visit a church. The church owns quite a few art works and also has a display of silver pieces used as altar ware. The sanctuary is rather unique as they only seem to use half of it for the actual services. On one wall they have a series of painting that relate to the mysteries of the rosary. This is actual art work, and Rubens, a well known artist, is represented by two paintings in the series. Rubens had spent much of his life in Antwerp.
The people at the church seemed most excited about their Calvary Garden. Here there were a number of statues relating the time of Jesus including his death. There is also a representation of hell. These are not the type of experiences that inspire faith in me, but it seems to help some people.
After visiting the church we returned to our quest to find the museum on the docks. We headed in that direction and inadvertently ended up in a red light district with young women sitting in windows trying to find business for themselves. It was a bit of a shock to see that as I was not expecting to see anything like that in Antwerp. We quickly left the area.
We finally found the MAS Museum. The reason I wanted to find the museum was that I had read one could climb to the top of the building without paying to see the museum, and that was correct. The building is a square in shape. The museum has escalators going up to the next level near the outside walls. Then they have the next escalator along the wall to one’s right. They continue like this in a spiral type format until one hits the 10th floor. One can see the glass sections in the building where visitors can view the city as they go up.
The 10th floor is basically the rooftop with no barriers for wind or rain. Each floor has a wall of glass created in a wavy in and out pattern, and one can check out the views from each floor. through the glass walls. The cover photo was taken at one of the top floors with these mannequins outside as flight crew.
When we returned to ground level, we decided it was time to go back to Brussels. It was a long walk back to the train station. However, we did stop for that unique Belgium restaurant, Five Guys, to get a burger. it was surprisingly busy while we were there.
Our train back was slow. It was a milk run. The train stopped at least 13 times before it got back to Brussels. We then still had to get the subway back to our hotel. Fortunately we hit the trains right on time and didn’t have to wait. We felt very fortunate.
Tomorrow we will be visiting Bruges. Andrea and I visited there last year also. This year I felt my wife would enjoy the experience so I put it on the list.
We are still at the beginning of our European adventures with lots more to come. If you have not done so yet, be sure to subscribe so you won’t miss any part of our three week journey. It’s easy to do. You can sign up through the comment section (You don’t have to comment) or look for the subscribe button. See you next week.