Antwerp, Belgium
Trip Start
Mar 19, 2008
1
3
61
Trip End
Jul 01, 2008
Antwerp,
Belgium
Saturday, March 22, 2008
and then travel down to Brussels, but at the last second and at the advice from
the Canadian dude, I decided to go straight to Antwerp and I'm damn glad I did.
It was a 2 hour, 20 euro train ride, and this city is amazing. When I got off
the train, I simply went to a information office, picked up a map of the city,
asked the hostels were, and took off. Unfortunately, all the hostels were full,
so I was forced to stay in a budget hotel. But today I simply wandered the
streets, admired the architecture, toured my first church of Europe, and ate
some waffles (which are eaten during the day or evening, not in the morning
like in the US; they are also twice as delicious as American "Belgium Waffles",
in fact, ours don't even count.), and some great fry's with this crazy curry
sauce
Church 1
. Any ways, the architecture here is freakin awesome, and unfortunately, Ireally didn't know what I looking at most of the time, since this city isn't as
bilingual as the Netherlands. Aside from random wanderings, the church that I toured
is absolutely amazing. It was built in four stages over a couple hundred years,
and is the largest gothic cathedrals in the low regions. It had two massive
pipe organs, quite a bit of art by Antwerp's leading Baroque painter, many
elaborate wood carvings, and of course gobs of stained glass windows. And
somehow, I don't know how in gods name this happened, but the most breath
taking cathedral in northern Europe has a freaking rooster weather vane at the
top of the tower. I included a picture of this. I'm fairly sure the many
architects and designers did not decide crown their masterpiece with a damn
golden rooster
Church 2
. Whatever, I just that that was odd. It's 8:10pm, I'm fairlytired after 9 hours of walking, so I dunno if I want dinner tonight. Tomorrow,
I'm off to Brughes, Belgium. It's a small town on the coast. Oh, it rained for
a good part of today; that makes rain in some form for every day I've been
here.
P.S. This hotel freakin sucks balls. They don't have free
WiFi, OR a free breakfast. My damn hostel had both of those, and cost half the
price. Talk about lame arse.
