This morning John went along with my wish to get up early and see Bruges while everyone else sleeps…what a different city! Even at only 9 o’clock in the morning, the city sleeps! None of the shops are open, no one is queuing for the canal tour, you are not in fear of being hit by a bike 🙂 Seriously, it is lovely. And you can take all of the pictures you want – not a soul will be in them! So I played amateur photographer and tried to get some worthy shots of this adorable place. We walked along the cobblestones, over the bridges, by the lakes, past the closed up storefronts – all the while taking photos and looking for my next great piece of art (NOT!). It was a lovely morning…
After a bit more shopping – a hipster, cool jacket for John and a little ditty for me too, we headed to our next destination, Ghent.
I had really been looking forward to seeing Ghent. It’s a college town, or so I read, so I was expecting another small town with a lazy, hopeful vibe to it. I’m not going to lie – that was not my first impression as we left the train station. Regardless, we did have a list of just a few things to do in Ghent. So off we went to the Gravensteen castle.
Gravensteen is literally translated as “Castle of the Counts” because Philip of Alsace, one of the counts of Flanders, erected the castle in 1180. This tour also came with an audio guide and it was so completely silly that both John and me really enjoyed it. It is narrated by a local comedian named Wouter Deprez. He takes you on a guided tour through the castle and details the stories of the castle using legends and anecdotes. I mean, if you’re going to hear about the torture chambers and hear the stories of death you may need a little comic relief! It is something I really recommend as you’ll either have a smile on your face or you’ll be rolling your eyes for almost an hour!
It was after noon and we needed food and, of course, more Belgian beer! After some help from the tourist office we landed at Vosken, a restaurant near St. Bavo’s Cathedral (more later). This time, with the help of the waitress who was not a beer drinker (more blasphemy!) we settled on Cornet. It was sooooo good! Who knew right? And John went for the traditional Belgian dish called waterzooi. Waterzooi is a total comfort food! It is a stew chunks of leek, carrot, onion, potatoes and chicken served piping hot with a basket of warm bread and butter so you can sop up all the goodness! Needless to say, John out ordered me. But I just cannot pass up a Croque Monsieur when I see one…
Of course our next stop was St. Bavo’s Cathedral. While this cathedral, as cathedrals go, is not so impressive, it does house a magnificent piece of art – “The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb” by the Van Eyck brothers. It also had an audio tour that described the amazing triptych and it’s 18 panels depicting scenes from the Bible.
Our next stop was to the waterfront of Ghent which I had seen pictures of and read so much about. It is called Graslei and is also a must-see. Right on the river and with tour boats all around, it is surrounded by buildings that literally look like gingerbread houses. The students from the universities come to sit along the banks of the river and drink and gossip. Tons of cafes are found here too. For John, we walked arm in arm and admired the feast for our eyes.
It was finally time to head to Antwerp. I was so excited to visit this city especially because I’d booked an Airbnb so John and I would have our own little place.
First impressions are huge and every visitor to the Antwerp Central train station will have an amazing first impression of this city! It is absolutely stunning! It is modern, well-kept, humongous and historic all at the same time. It is a must see in my opinion even if you don’t arrive to the city by train. As you leave the station you will be dumbfounded by the enormous dome above the waiting room hall. In fact in the magazine Newsweek in 2009, this station was voted as the world’s fourth greatest train station.
First impressions can be completely wrong, huh? The airbnb was ….in a word….a dump. It was actually clean but still a dump. It was actually in a decent area but still a dump. It just lacked all charm and usability. And I had done research on this! And this place had gotten hundreds of 5-star reviews! Seriously, how does a traveler handle these sorts of things…it just makes no sense to me. But we’d deal with it…
Hungry, we headed out to one of our Airbnb host’s recommendations (and now I think why did I do that?). A bar called Bar Paniek – in our neighborhood down by the docks. Here is John’s description of the place – a trendy shithole! Looking for the positive…the beers were cheap and it was warm given a large fire pit in the middle of the shithole. I ordered a Seef beer and john a Graff. Mine was better 🙂
Well, we were 0 for 2 in Antwerp. No where to go but up right? Thankfully we stumbled on a restaurant on our way back called Roest. It looked cozy and warm and busy and oh-so-inviting at this point! And we were greeted by friendly staff who served us a lovely, huge, much needed burger and WINE. We were both done with beer at this point.
On our way back we decided to check out the red light district which was in our neighborhood – of course, right?!?!?! A red light district is always something to see – women, no men in this one – of all shapes, sizes, colors, ages…one can have their pick.
I just have one final thing to say – if anyone is reading this that is considering putting their place on Airbnb, please no false advertising! And make sure your bedding is not yellowing with age and your pillows were purchased in this decade. Jeez!