The Dutch part of Belgium: Antwerp, Bruges, & Ghent

Antwerp's train station

Antwerp

Grote Market

The view from across the river in Antwerp

Alex in the tunnel underneath the river

The hidden alley that looks like Bruges (but in Antwerp)

An entire dress made of chocolate!!!

view of Antwerp

Lovely Bruges

Fries are so popular that they tell you not to eat them on the tram!

Ghent

Graffiti alley

Alex eating his waffle!!!

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....