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| Antwerp's train station |
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| Antwerp |
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| Grote Market |
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| The view from across the river in Antwerp |
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| Alex in the tunnel underneath the river |
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| The hidden alley that looks like Bruges (but in Antwerp) |
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| An entire dress made of chocolate!!! |
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| view of Antwerp |
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| Lovely Bruges |
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| Fries are so popular that they tell you not to eat them on the tram! |
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| Ghent |
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| Graffiti alley |
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| Alex eating his waffle!!! |
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| Bikes at the Ghent train station |
On December 6, Alex and I left Sevilla
for Brussels, Belgium for about a week. We arrived in
Brussels and immediately found our hostel, and in the morning headed
to the train station to go off to Antwerp, Belgium. First
interesting thing that happened was that as the train left Brussels,
all the people on the train got a view of a very long Red-Light
District. I for one had never seen anything like that
before, and I was even more surprised that girls were dancing in
windows in their underwear at 9:30 in the morning… but anyway,
after we arrived at one of the most beautiful train stations in the
world in Antwerp, we put our stuff in a locker and headed out to
explore the city. As we made our way towards the center of
the city, we passed by a lot of shops. Antwerp really
reminded us of America in many ways because there were so many
American stores, like Urban Outfitters! And that is a store that you
usually don’t see abroad very often! We also stopped to get our
first Belgian waffle for some power food as we walked around…
DE-LISH! The first sight we went to see was the Cathedral of Our
Lady, which really just looked like every other cathedral for us. We
walked through the Grote Market, but it was filled with closed
Christmas market booths, so it hindered good pictures! We
went over to look at a castle along the river, but it was closed. We
then walked to this hidden tunnel that went down beneath the river
and was really long, and we popped out on the other end. We
had a great view of Antwerp from the other side of the river, and
stopped at a local café for some non-touristy food. We
headed back to the main part of Antwerp and frantically
searched for this little hidden alley that was supposed to look like
Bruge, and after searching for quite a while, we found it and it was
pretty. Next we went to this Chocolate factory where we
saw dresses and things made of chocolate! It was sooo cool! We
then met up with this girl Charlis with whom we were
couchsurfing. She was pretty busy with schoolwork, but she
led us to this museum where we went to the top floor and had some
more good views of Antwerp. She left to go do some more
homework, but on our way back to the city center, we stopped in to
the Red-Light District of Antwerp. It was still pretty
early, but it was really awkward because I was the only girl on the
street with clothes on…. I can't believe places like that exist! We
went to meet up with Yves, the boyfriend of Charlis, and we went out
for pizza and talked about what it was like to be from Belgium and
such. When we dropped our stuff off at their place, we
went to a local bar where Charlis works to watch a soccer game and
hang out. Charlis and Yves were really nice and offered a
really nice place for us to stay. Great couchsurfing
experience! The next morning, we left early for
Bruges. Bruges really is the most beautiful place ever.
We first walked to the hostel to drop off our stuff and seriously, it
was such a beautiful walk, and we were only walking on the
outskirts!!! After dropping our stuff off we went to see the Basilica
of the Holy Blood (Heilig Bloed Basiliek) where some people believe
it holds a vial of Jesus's blood. There was a woman inside on this
throne with a vile chained around her neck of the “blood”. It
was interesting to say the least. We visited the Church of Our Lady,
where Michaelangelo's statue of Madonna is located. The next place
we visited was quite the experience. We walked up 366 steps to the
top of the Belfry tower in the center of town. It was so steep and
tiny, it was basically like spinning in circles for about 10
minutes... and there was only one way up and down so we were pinned
against the walls trying to let others go up or down, including a mob
of British children. The view from the top was beautiful and totally
worth it!!! At the bottom of the Belfry, we took the “french fry
challenge” from the two neighboring rivaling stands. They both
claim to have the best french fries in town (Belgium is famous for
french fries), so we sampled each. They put all sorts of sauces on
them, and I really don't know what kind of sauce we ordered from one
of the stands, but it was awesome. So, if any of you go to Bruges,
pick the stand on the left!!! We went for a walk to walk off our
fries, and found the first chocolate shop ever in Bruges, “De
Clerck Chocolaterie”, and bought a LOT of chocolate. The chocolate
shops in Belgium have chocolate EVERYTHING! It really was quite
tempting not to buy out the store! Using our handy-dandy map, we
found this little hidden bar called “De Garre”. It was in a
little alley that was hard to find and it was filled with all locals.
It is apparently the only place in the world you can drink this
specific “Garre” beer. Everyone was drinking it, and it was
quite good. The atmosphere was really relaxing and cozy, we both
really enjoyed it. It was a lovely way to end our day before having
dinner at the restaurant affiliated with our hostel. I had Flemish
stew, which was basically just a big hunk of meat, but at least I
tried Belgian food. We also had a free sampler of 3 Belgian beers,
which are typically good, but one of them was a nasty cherry beer...
I'm not that into sweet beers. Anyway, the next day we took a train
to Ghent, and then a really long tram ride to our hostel. After
dropping off our stuff, we went to a lunch place recommended on our
map called “De Fabriek”. Now this was a little more than we
bargained for... we had no idea what we were doing. We ended up in
this place that seemed like some sort of cooperative. It was
supposedly an old leather factory, but now it had been taken over
with foose ball tables, a rock climbing wall, a dance floor, and then
a cafeteria at the top where we headed up to for food. Everyone was
local and seemed like they were part of a regular group that came
here. There were no signs instructing us to do anything in Dutch or
in English. It was the kind of place you just had to know already.
We kind of looked around feeling totally clueless until an old man
came up to us and helped us. He was so nice and told us to grab a
tray and that we could pay the guy serving up the food. For only 5
euros, we had soup, bread, a main dish, fruit, and a drink. It was a
great deal and the food was delicious! After lunch we walked down
“graffiti alley” and went to the center to the top of Ghent's
Belfry, but this time thankfully, there was an elevator. Mostly in
Ghent we did a lot of walking around. We did find ourselves in
Ghent's Red Light District, which differed by the girls were really
putting on a show. We walked through the Christmas markets and had
some chocolate waffles and yummy potatoes before heading back to our
hostel to unwind a bit. We met a guy from Canada at our hostel's
bar/lounge where we discussed each others countries and travels
around Europe over a local beer. The next day we went to the train
station to go to Brussels to meet up with Marine!!! However, leaving
Ghent was the end of our Dutch Belgian adventure, because in
Brussels, it was the French part of the country....
