Antwerpen - The Sleeping Beauty

Town Hall building

Antwerpen/Anvers is the most beautiful city of Belgium, where I was so far. It has a taste like the 19th century, like the city sleeped in the last 2-300 years, and now the Old Town is like a little pearl in the modern surroundings, that's why the title. The city don't have the modernity, as for example Bruxelles, as has the lot of modern glass and concrete buildings and offices. Here you also can't find any fancy metal constructions and so. The only exeption is the harbor, as it is a famous transit point of shipping, but later about that.

As we arrived to the city, there is the train station building, very pretty and awesome in one place, as nothing modern, if you just see the building, but you just have to check, it has 26 platforms, and without place for the vertical placing, the platforms take place on more than 3(!) levels above each other. It is of course neccessary because the giant amount traffic it makes. It's either an artistic or an engineer miracle, I vote for both. So why not the first selfie?

The next important session, if we go out of the station, is the city, especially the Old Town. The city has a feeling, that the architects were drunk, when they planned the buildings, as any of them is similar as the others. Very funny and oldschool btw, as it looks completely different, than LLN, where you can lost because of the same lookalike buildings. So the inner city caught me pretty much, as it is so colourful and smells old. Pretty amusing in the beginning, but after... still amusing. :)

In the city there is not much car, neither car-zones, as I'm getting used to it, a real Belgian city don't have cars in the heart of the city. So a lot of narrow pedestrian streets, Gofridors, restaurants and coffee shops, just like in Croatia, just not as hot. So maximum points for the feeling. I just can't and won't show every churches and museums in the city, as it is just too much, and e.g. we didn't get into any of the museums, as EVERYTHING closes after 5pm in Belgium, even the tourist attractions. And the almost 8 hours we spent there was not enough to get to know with the city, as it is bigger, than it seems. (That's why we late the train in the last minute, so we had to wait like an hour. But the good thing, that I learned, when can I use officially the word Fanculo.) I won't tell more about the city, there are the pictures, they describe the more.

So I will show you the most important 3 things in Anvers: the grand place, the fort and the cathedral. Systematically the next one is the Cathedral of Our Lady, so another Notre Dame :) , as it is the first, we found and it's the closest to the train station. The cathedrals most typical characteristic is the golden clock on the tower, which you can see far from the place. Btw the building is as huge, as you cannot really take a photo about it from the place in front of the church, as it looks on the picture. I cannot say anything about the inside of the cathedral, as we weren't inside, as you have to pay for it, and we are students. :) But possibly the same beauty, as the other churches I've been already. The next station is the Grand Place / Grotte Markt, but it is near to the church, as everything important is in 500 metres area of the grand place. Das Grotte Markt has 2 main attractions, one is the Town Hall with the flags from all over the world (mostly Europe, but not just from there). The another important stuff is the statue of the discus thrower with a giant hand. As we realized it later based on some guide book and the busy girls, this is a real "Giant's hand", as there is this legend about an evil giant, who lived there and stole from the merchants, and one day somebody cut his hand and voilá: Anvers... So that's the story in short words. And since then it is the symbol of Antwerpen. Yeah, one more story, when we were at the Grand Place, there was a freestyle cycling competition, quite interesting, and very fotogenic.  So we were sitting a few minutes to take photos about the cyclists and the town hall and tried to guess, what are the unknown flags, but I'm sure, it't not the most interesting place in the city. So we continued our journey to the coast.
  

If you reach the coast exactly from the Grand Place, you arrive in the front of the castle (that is really tourist-friendly), which is pretty small to defend such a huge city. The castle is beautiful anyway, but in it there is only a restaurant, and you can walk through on it, but we didn't see any exhibition. I got to 2 conclusions at this point, as it was the second "fort" I saw in Belgium without any military use:
1: I think Belgium was invaded as much for a purpose. The soldiers can be as brave as possible, with those useless castles it is just impossible to defend a country. :) (My other theory about the invasions is, that the Belgian soldiers probably drank beer instead of guarding the walls. :) )
2: More disapponting is the fact, if there is no exhibitions in Belgium about the old ages, as it would mean, that the Germans, the French, the USA or whoever took all the values from Belgium during the WW-s to "save" it or for own purposes. The reason don't matter, just it seems that Belgians try to blow up the modern era's popular people, like Hergé, about him in another post. So I'm just really disappointed, that the only thing these wars left in Belgium are the buildings. They're nice btw, just I miss some live history class from the trips.

Now back to our journey. If you walk north from the castle, soon you'll reach the harbors. Meanwhile enjoy the sunshine, ships, selfies, and the huge building in the beginning of the harbor. It looks like a bastion between the modern and the ancient part of the city, and it's just enormous. So selfies again, selfies with each other, with the buildings, with sunset, if you still have time, buy a baguette sandwich and sit on the coast to eat it.
Well, then a few annoying things: tourist city, so not cheap. Belgian city, so everything closes after 5, we even couldn't check Rubens house at half past 4, as "the last group is already in there". From the outside it looked ruined, and some say, that the inside isn't as interesting - like the painter's favourite toothbrush. One more thing! Do not ever try to find the biggest Diamond Museum in Europe! Never! Ever! Some say it is moved, some others say, it is moved to another place, and the police said, it isn't even exist, according to another police it may be moved. I'm not sure, if there was anything like this ever in Anvers.
But it was the best city with the best people so far, I really enjoyed it. Yeah, and before I forget, it is a Dutch speaking city, so no Bonjour and Merci, strictly ENGLISH!

And a beer of course, why miss it?
As I couldn't find, what is the beer of the city, we tried a Greek one, as we ate at a Greek taverna with Greek language without Greek employees. As I remember well, the Greek guys said, it's the best Greek beer, or maybe just the most known. So, it was nothing intense, it was like a good Hungarian beer, so an average. To the gyros and souvlaki it was perfect choice, good quality-price ratio, nothing special.

City rating: 8/10

Beauty: 3/3 - best so far

Sights: 3/3 - all day program and more

Speciality: 0/2 - no beer, no exhibitions

Spirit: 2/2

Mythos rating: 5/10 - average beer for an average price, totally average, like a good Hungarian beer. :)