Antwerp Day 1

So if you're determined to get the most out of just 2 days that you have in Belgium, it's key that you use literally every hour of the 48 you get.
Through lots of complication and logistics, we opted to leave at the unconscionable hour of 1 AM to start our drive to Antwerp.  Long story short, we were making a long projection on how we could arrive in Antwerp for 9 am.
Since Kris has been doing all of the driving (actually all of it) since we arrived, because of insurance on her company car, I haven't actually driven a car in more than 2 months.  What better way to get back on the horse as they say, than to undertake a midnight drive across 3 countries.
It made more sense for me to drive this one, so I rented a car (VW Polo - das auto) and we started off from Loughborough around 1:30 AM.
Lots of coffee and a couple of great podcasts later, we found ourselves at the Folkestone terminal of the Eurostar Rail Ferry to Europe, more commonly known as 'The Chunnel".  We even managed to be there 5 minutes before the final call for our train (whew!).  I swear I didn't drive 10 miles over the speedlimit the whole way.

We'll post a video after we return from Barcelona and Athens.

It was a really interesting, albeit a bit underwhelming, experience.  I didn't realize until just a few days before that the Chunnel Tunnel is actually a train ferry, on which cars, vans, RVs, Busses and Trucks all drive onto, they close the doors, and off the train goes, travelling at 160 KPH under the English Tunnel.  35 minutes later, you emerge, in France, with an hour time change and driving on the other side of the road.... (so now I've gone from the wrong side of the car and the wrong side of the road, to the wrong side of the car and the right side of the road.... huh).

The system at both ends is remarkably efficient.  Within 2 quick turns, you're on the highway and on your way.
The rest of the drive to Antwerp was pretty unremarkable, aside from the 'security check' we went through, where they pulled everyone off the highway, made them go around a roundabout, past the Belgian police, and back on the highway you go.  This is almost certainly due to the recent attacks in Paris.  It was the most visible security presence that we noticed on the trip.

We arrived in Antwerp pretty much right on time around 9 am.  We drove ourselves to the city centre) and began exploring.  Antwerp has it's own cathedral right in the centre of town, Our Lady of Antwerp.  It's a mere 500 year old church (well 800 from when construction started).  As Kris and I joked, practically a baby compared to some others we've seen.  Still, quite a remarkable building.  Inside they were doing an exhibition to Rubens, the most famous painter in Antwerp, so many of his paintings lined every corner of the church.

It was really interesting because during the reformation, there were no paintings allowed unless they were about Jesus.  In order to show their support for the local church, each of the various professional guilds (bakers, blacksmiths, tailors, etc) would commission an alterpiece that reflected their own guild, so the bakers' and fishermen's guild would  join together to paint a scene of Jesus feeding 5000 with 2 loaves of bread and 5 fish.  It made for a bit of fun trying to look at the painting and guess which guild was responsible for commissioning it.

We then took a walk across Antwerp, stopping for a lunch of savoury stuffed Belgian waffles.  This, I must say is a great idea.  Mine was stuffed with Ham, Gouda and Emmantal cheese, while Kris had arugala and brie.

Fuelled up, we continued making our trek towards the MAS - the Museum Aan de Stroom, a reasonably new addition to the Antwerp skyline, and the home of it's historical collection from the last 100 years or so.  It shows a lot of what the city tried to do to cope through WWII, as well as the cultural changes that have taken place over the last 200 years.

A real perk to visiting the MAS is the view from the top of the museum.  There are remarkably few high-rise buildings, so at 8 storeys high, MAS provides a very good vantage point.  There are also some very talented marketers at the stores nearby.  See if you can spot it.

After quickly finding a geocache outside, we made off to the Museum Plantin-Moretus, one of the oldest printers in Belgium.  We toured the family home, which includes all of the old print rooms, the presses, and examples of the... well really masterpieces that they put together.  My favourite was an original printing of Mercator's map of the world.  It was great to see so much history so well preserved, and made me think often as we walked through the museum about my Opa, who was a typesetter and a printer as his career.

This is where Loughborough is... well where it was believed to be around 1600

We spent much of the evening out on the street, walking around Antwerp and taking in the sights, sounds and smells of the Christmas Market that started today.  Needless to say, the mood in the crowd was jovial and happy.  We just missed seeing the lighting of the tree because we were a bit late for a dinner reservation, but this is what the streets looked like.

Our dinner was in a really cool converted industrial space, so we had a birds-eye-view to people watch.  Dinner was great.  Kristin had a venison stew, while I went for a delicious steak.  Add in a glass of wine for Kris and a local beer for me, and we were, needless to say, happy travellers.

We opted to find dessert in the street at one of the market vendors, so headed off to take in the sights and sounds.  They have constructed a decent sized outdoor skating rink in the middle of the town (although the skating surface would be categorized as fair at best by the Rideau Canal Skateway).

While there were lots of shops selling all kinds of things, this was perhaps our favourite... I didn't know that Canada was a net exporter of socks.  Also, since they are using the Government of Canada logo, does this count as part of the Conservative Governments' Economic Action Plan?

Many more photos from various parts of the Christmas Market, including several of the Cathedral, Our Lady of Antwerp, lit up as part of the celebration.

This is the local government house (above), more or less right at the centre of the market, and all the goings on.  In order to make your photos look a little more christmassy, they have this frame below, so by taking your photo through it, you can appear as though it's a true, Canadian Winter Wonderland.... There was a line so we opted to pass on this opportunity.  We'll keep trying for some real snow at some point this year, and take honest photos when we see it.

So it was Saint Nicholaus back at home for the Philippi Family.  I was feeling kinda bummed that I wasn't going to be there (an obvious consequence of this year abroad), but being just a hundred kms or so from Holland, I figured I should be able to find some Sinterklaus traditions I can take in.  I was not disappointed, as we quickly found oliebollen being sold at several of the market stalls.

It wasn't quite the same as at home, for one, they are mechanically added to the oil, so hardly any exciting shapes, but it was a nice taste from home.

nom nom nom

At this point, we had been awake for about 22 hrs, and decided we should call it a night.  We walked our way home (Antwerp is great for being a very walkable city), and found our way to a comfortable bed at our Air BNB.  More photos of the apartment, and Antwerp Day 2 still to come.