Blog - Antwerp
Antwerp
On September 16 morning, we took the train to Antwerp, Belgium. Antwerp is in the Flemish part of Belgium, Flemish being one of Belgium's official langues.
As far as I could find out, the Flemish language is very close to Dutch (the Netherlands' language) and the different name is mostly a nationalist issue (interesting info in this thread). In Antwerp, although most signs are in Flemish, people in shops all seem to also speak French (and also English), so it was no problem getting around.
We only had the afternoon to visit Antwerp because we then had to head off to Bruxelles where we had booked a stay. In order to use the short time wisely, we set our priorities straight: chocolate (for me), fashion (for Tomoko), patates frites, and waffles. Tomoko had done some research and had addresses of several shops in all categories, so all we had to do was find them. I had printed a few maps from the useful Antwerp site, and we also found maps at several places in the city.
Our first view of Antwerp was Central Station which was really beautiful (pictured above). Central Station is located facing De Keyserlei street, so we walked on De Keyserlei, Leysstraat and Meir down to Groen Plaats, and then walked around this axis.
Belgium is the kingdom of chocolate and praline! I had never seen so many chocolate/praline shops!
We decided to try as many as possible, so we entered all of the ones we saw in Antwerp and bought at least two chocolates at each, usually costing about €1 for 2, which is incredibly cheap compared to the prices some of the same shops charge in Tokyo (where prices over 300yen a piece is common), so we had a real feast!
We had Del Rey, Galler, Godiva, Léonidas, Neuhaus, Pierre Marcolini (where I also ate delicious chocolate ice cream), ...!
To take back home I bought a variety of Léonidas bars, a bunch of Côte d'Or bars (that my friend Simon-Pierre in Montréal had recommended), some Kinder bars that I had never seen before (I only knew of the Kinder Surprise eggs which are widely available in Canada and Japan, but I also saw these other bars elsewhere in Europe and also in Hong Kong), and also some Meurisse Zero bars (chocolate best eaten cold) that I've always loved.
Then we went to eat some fried potatoes at Frituur N°1, a stand-style restaurant with indoor tables Tomoko had found about on the net. We had fries with mayonnaise and curry mayonnaise, and Tomoko had some Belgian beer.
Later we also had a delicious waffle at Belgaufre!
And now some more pictures of Antwerp!
Click the thumbnails for larger images
We left for Brussels late afternoon...
(Sorry about the slow pace with the details of our trip, I'll try to speed up a bit!)
Posted on October 13, 2003 at 13:55 | Tweet
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Great site. The Europe trip photos are great. Look forward to seeing all the cool Japanese stuff. Like the dogshit signs too.
Posted by mike on October 14, 2003 at 08:13
Thank you for reading Mike! I'll be posting more info and pictures about Japan so stay tuned.
I still have a few digital film rolls to go through with the Europe trip too!
Posted by Patrick on October 14, 2003 at 08:23
Aahhh...this make me homesick! Nice photos. Frites with mayonnaise...
Posted by vincentvds on October 14, 2003 at 16:01
And probably the best ones I ever had! :)
Merci bien de lire! Beau blog toi aussi, bonne chance pour 2級!
Posted by Patrick on October 16, 2003 at 00:21
Nice to read (see pictures) about your own surroundings through the eyes of foreiners :) Can't wait for the rest of the travel story.
I don't want to bore anyone with details, but in the Netherlands and in Flandres we really speak the same language. I'm sure any Fleming would agree. Flemish is a dialect, with some different words and different pronounciation, but the grammar and spelling is the same so you can't tell the difference in writting. There's a word for Belgium French too: Walloon... OK, so far the lecture..
I'm not crazy about Belgium fries myself, but you can tell Tomoko I really like Jupiler beer too :-)
Posted by Erik on October 19, 2003 at 00:58