Wonderful Waffle Weekend: Antwerp

 

Throughout this weekend we stayed at a budget IBIS hotel near the train station in Antwerp.  Two triple rooms here were more affordable than any other option I found, including free breakfast with hot chocolate, and everywhere we wanted to visit was within an hour's drive.

 

We headed into Antwerp pretty early on foot and most of us enjoyed looking at the old and new architecture, store fronts, and how many McDonalds we passed (four in a fifteen minute walk).  Others of us preferred sightseeing inside a novel. 

 

The name Antwerp comes from a legend about a giant called Antigoon who lived near the river. He extracted a toll from passing boatmen, and for those who refused, he severed one of their hands and threw it into the river. Eventually the giant was killed by a young hero named Silvius Brabo, who cut off the giant's own hand and flung it into the river. Ant = hand, werpen = thower.  Let's give Antwerp a hand. 

 

There were other stories to learn in Antwerp.  This sculpture in front of the church is based on the book A Dog of Flanders by Marie Louise de la Ramée written in 1872 and set in Antwerp. In the book a boy named Nello becomes an orphan at the age of two when his mother dies. His grandfather, who lives in a small village near the city of Antwerp, takes him in.  One day, Nello finds a dog who was almost beaten to death, and names him Patrasche. The dog recovers, and from then on, Nello and Patrasche are inseparable. Eventually in the story his grandfather dies and his life becomes even more desperate. Having no place to stay, Nello wishes to go to the cathedral of Antwerp (to see Rubens' The Elevation of the Cross and The Descent of the Cross), but the exhibition held inside the building is only for paying customers and he's out of money. On the night of Christmas Eve, he and Patrasche go to Antwerp and, by chance, find the door to the church open. The next morning, the boy and his dog are found frozen to death in front of the triptych. Nothing like crying in a public square, I tell ya.  (And yes, Charlotte was still reading her book.)

We also wanted to see the Rubens artwork inside the church, but it was closed to visitors and only open for mass, it being Sunday.  We stepped inside and found that the attached gift shop was open and that from there we could look through and view the Rubens paintings just fine.  We lit a candle on our way out- for all the little Nellos.

 

The Grote Markt of Antwerp was set up for a Sunday market and we strolled the square.

 

In the center is this fountain with a depiction of  Silvius Brabo throwing the giant's hand.

 

 

We stopped for a mid-morning snack of heart shaped waffles with whipped cream and strawberries, but of course I didn't think to take a picture of those.

 

And then we strolled to the River Scheldt.  Some historians say the name Antwerp derives from "anda" (at) and "werpum" (wharf). But is that as much fun as throwing a giant's hand? Not so much.

 

We were really just in the mood for low-key city strolling, so that is what we did.

 

And we made a stop at a little playground. 

 

Then we saw this busker with a piano!  His name was Toby Jacobs!  How great is that?? So we bought a CD of piano music by Toby Jacobs as our Belgium souvenir.

 

We did visit one museum in Antwerp, which was the Rubens house. Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) was the most famous Baroque Flemish artist and his former Antwerp home and studio are now a museum housing his and a few peers' work. The house itself is a neat place to explore- I love seeing how people once lived- but the artwork was really impressive.

 

After walking through the house/museum, we went to the garden out back and enjoyed the beautiful flowers. Rubens was very successful during his lifetime, and he clearly liked to live comfortably.

 

On our way back toward the hotel, we stopped by the square in front of the train station where there was a little bit of a festival set up.  The kids desperately wanted to walk through The Beast.  I tried to talk them out of it saying it looked like a haunted house set up where people would jump out at them, but only the youngest was deterred. When the three big kids came out, they were not happy.  Apparently a "scary guy" had jumped out at them inside. Toby bravely asked him which way was out, to which he responded, "There is no way out." Despite that, they did find their way out and will be unlikely to want to do something like that again any time soon.

 

The front of the train station is really quite pretty.

 

We got talked into paying for one more ride, and all of the kids did this trampoline bungee thing.  This is Amelie.

 

Toby didn't love the heights once he got up there.  You can see The Beast in the background.

 

Jakey was the giggliest bouncer.

 

When the worker thought Charlotte wasn't bouncing high enough, he tugged on her long spider legs so that she would bounce on her bum and then way up high again.  She hated that.  So then he gave the boys the same treatment, sending them all a bit higher than they were comfortable with.  Still, at the end of the day, Jake and Amelie said this was the best part of the day.

 

We looked for some dinner nearby and found this very crowded Lebanese restaurant.  I generally think crowded is a good sign for a restaurant.  From a distance, the food smelled and looked great so we waited for a table.  Up close the food did not look great and Rob and I prayed no one would get food poisoning.  Some travel meals are like that. Thankfully, no one got sick.  After dinner we headed back to the hotel for the night.  We had walked more than 8 miles on our urban hike through Amsterdam and the kiddos were seriously worn out.  We didn't expect much from this little city, but it ended up charming us.