ABroad

Saturday, 11 February 2017

Antwerp - Belgium

14:51:00 No comments

Out of all the places so far, something with Antwerp clicked with me. It has a bit of a trendy coffee culture, it's very cycle friendly and at this point I was really enjoying the Belgium beer and food. From a city perspective, Antwerp is the most likely big city we've visited which could see myself living in. The capital of the flemish province of Belgium and with a population of 510,600, Antwerp is the most populated city of Belgium. Like Switzerland, German and French are also commonly spoken in Belgium but for Antwerp (and all the flemish provinces), Dutch is the offical language.

In our short couple of days, we learnt a lot about Antwerp and Belgium in general which was pretty interesting since this part of Europe was very prosperous during the 1500's before much of the west had been discovered by the European Explorers.

Antwerp Facts:
- It is home to the second biggest sea port by total freight shipped in Europe, which is interesting given it is 80km inland from the North Sea.
- Between 80 and 90 percent of the world's rough diamonds, and 50 percent of its cut diamonds are traded in Antwerp each year!
- Antwerp Zoo is one of the world's oldest (founded in 1843), housing more then 6000 animals it's located smack bang in the centre of town next to the central railway station.
- The world's first printed newspaper was published here nearly 400 years ago!

Antwerpen-Centraal - considered to be one of the worlds most beautiful railway stations, we can confirm that it was pretty impressive. One thing you can expect throughout Europe is how grand and significant main railway stations are! the buildings are quality and each still hold such an important position in these large cities. They've been built to last and truly impress!

Our accommodation was roughly 25 minutes walk from the train station and around about 40 minutes walk from the old town/city centre through some of the most multicultural areas we've been in since the Balkans (in terms of different ethnic groups). In one of the best Hostels we've stayed in too, which possibly added to my liking toward this city.

abhostel had the best kitchen and general layout of all the hostels we've stayed in yet. And a great quote on the door.

One thing we really liked about this hostel was that we were sharing it with only a handful of guests and a couple of Workawayers, who were volunteering (an Aussie and a Kiwi) in the hostel making beds, cleaning and running the check-ins. It was great to chat to them about the experience (doing a workaways in a hostel) while staying there because there are so many hostel profiles on the Workaway website, and we've always steered clear of them.

Our plan for Antwerp was to get amongst a walking tour, taste the local beers, waffles and chips. Check out the Christmas Markets and just wander about really, we were graced with some reasonable weather since we were getting up closer to the ocean, and a pretty quiet tourist free time in general.

Dinner one night.

The most elaborate ice skating rink we've come across yet - featuring a ring of fire around it i suppose to keep spectators warm....

Antwerp's Cathedral of Our Lady and its 100+ metre spire dating back to 1350's.

Previously a fortified city, barely anything remains other then the Het Steen (The Stone) - pictured above.

POWERRRRRR!!!!!

In the central market area there were these outdoor patio wood fired heaters for people to gather and have a Christmas Market wine or waffles.

Such a collection of frothies in the beer shops. All very crafty, full flavoured and STRONG!

This statue of a boy and his dog just in front of the cathedral, a tribute to "A Dog of Flanders" novel written in 1872. Despite been set in Belgium, the novel has been a children's classic in Japan and Korea for decades and is considered one of the must see tourist attractions for East-Asian tourists.

Have to get stuck into the handmade chocolates.

The Antwerp "A" is everywhere around the city, even on chocolate!

This is interesting - this door belonged to an apartment of one of the local drunks. He added this little key guide to his door lock to help him find the key hole after spending the day on the turps. I like to think that this ingenuity and logical thinking pretty much sums up the Belgiums.

The city is split in half by the Scheldt River. There is three tunnels, one of which is specific for cyclists and pedestrians and features quite a big bike lift to save the cyclist lugging their bikes down the stairs.

Sunset over the river Scheldt.

The Boerentoren high rise was built in 1932 was considered to be Europes's first skyscrapers.

Museum ann de Stroom (Museum by the River) - a 60m architectural designed brick building gives you free access to the top level for views over the city. It was well worth a little cycle out to have a look. Antwerp has a similar city bike hire system to London (first 30min free), over the couple of days we were here we used the bikes to get around a little bit quicker.

Not our photo!

Views looking back to the city centre from the Museum ann de Stroom.

Little holes for trying to fit your head out, also they can be used for sticking the camera out to allow for glass-free photos. They are so logical in this part of Europe. They wouldn't think of this kind of thing in Germany.

Something about the Belgiums and naughty sculptures.

The city dedicates a week and a street each year for street artists to come show their talents. Throughout Europe there is so much of this and when done professionally I reckon its pretty impressive - also turns into a bit of a tourist attraction.

Truely our visit to Antwerp was a bloody good one. It has so much to offer in terms of culture, attractions and just interesting things to see. This area was such a power during the 1500's when spice trading and exporting to a fro Europe, the UK, Africa etc. really started to kick off. With such a rich history and stunning architecture curated from these golden years, along with its trendy feel (home to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts), there are so many quirky cafe's and bars to spend time in. Everything about our experience here was positive - kudos Antwerp!

Cheers!

Tuesday, 7 February 2017

Ghent & Brussles - Belgium

12:10:00 No comments

We were heading to Belgium with very little expectation or idea of what it had to offer, other then chocolate, beer and waffles! It hasn't been a country which people rave about or mention in our experience throughout this trip, or previously. Being a passionate cyclist, I'm aware of the significants of cycling in Belgium. Big races such as the Tour of Flanders and Liege-Bastogne-Liege are two of the five biggest one day races in professional cycling!

Reading our Lonely Planet book, it's recommendation was to go to Bruges - a canal-based city and sometime referred to as The Venice of the North. Bruges was considered a must see. However we read a lot of traveller reviews which described the town as a tourist hot spot and a better option maybe Ghent. At this stage we don't have oodles of time because of an organised Workaway for Christmas... so we rolled the dice and decide that Ghent will be a better option. It is only 30min by train to Brussels (which we want to see), is architecturally comparable to Bruges and supposedly less touristy - TICK.

We arrive at the Brussels train station after a short train ride from Cologne, where we have to get tickets and change to a Belgium connection to get out to Ghent. Usually we try and fumble our way through automated ticket machines at the train stations but in this instance we decided to go to the ticked office for some reason... We were greeted by a nice bloke in French, which was great because I could reply "Bonjourrr, parlez-vous anglais?". He was very helpful and said Ghent was a great town which he preferred to Bruges, and sold us a reasonably priced ticket to Brussels which we planned to visit the next day. This ticket sales fella was one of the nicest people we had came across in a while which peped us up and gave us a great start to the new country.

Belgium is a little bit more expensive than Germany, and to save on accommodation our Airbnb was a bit of a hike from the centre of town. A couple of minutes on the train, 5 minutes on a bus then about a 2km walk. We had a pretty comfortable ensuite apartment with a gay couple as hosts and their two cats. The house smelt a bit catty, and I didn't see it but Amy said there was some cat shit in one of the hallways leading to our room... Otherwise we had our own tea and coffee and a couple of snacks in a reasonably sized room with full access to their kitchen for meals which was perfect.

After dropping off our stuff at the apartment we headed back into the town centre for a good look around as well as getting some groceries. We were able to get onto a bus that took us all the way into the city centre for $8, where we were greeted with plenty of people, plenty of Christmas lights and Christmas markets. The centre of the old town has plenty of grand old buildings which against the back drop of Christmas made for a pretty spectacular scene.

Truffle chocolate! looks like rusty steel eh. Pretty impressive.

First things first, we were told in Munich by a couple of American's to try and eat our weight in Belgium Waffles because they were so good. We can agree, they were delish!

Interesting set up. One for the whole family.

Local frothy. Super strong which we found out pretty quickly. We had a couple of these and they run at about 8-10% alcohol content, they sneak up on you! Glad they weren't serving out pints.

Swiss raclette took us straight back to our time in the Swiss chalet! We had one but it wasn't anywhere near as good...

We didn't really know what was going on here... Didn't know Australian ice cream was so sort after?

On the second day we decided to head back to Brussels for the day to do the touristy things. It was so close, just half an hour on the train to the central train station and from what we've heard to see the sites, and experience a bit of the capital of the European Union a day was all we needed.

Straight out of a reasonably impressive and clean train station we were greeted with plenty of people out and about on the streets and in cafes.

The Guilds of Brussels in Palace Square - (a guild is a medieval association of craftsmen and merchants).

Handmade chocolate - Check!

The worlds most disappointing tourist attraction - manneken pis (translating to "little man pee" in dutch)
The big fella was dressed up for the occasion, and has been standing here since the 1600's.

Fritland - It didn't disappoint! The best thing about this was that the people behind the counter loaded up the servings±

Tintin street art was everywhere! I think because it was created in Brussels.

There was a reasonable military presence in Brussels, walking around the streets and at the train stations.

Back in Ghent and to finish off the cracking day with a cracking sunset.

Our third day based in Ghent we hired bikes and headed out on a cold day to ride along a few of the canals and explore a little bit of the old city centre. One thing we figured out pretty quick was majority of the streets were cobbled, which made the going pretty tough! You couldn't own high heels in this town. There was a fair bit of cycling infrastructure as to be expected, and plenty of public transport.

Some castle... had to pay to visit so we just took a quick snap and continued onward.

Main pedestrian street and where the majority of the Christmas markets and ice skating rink was. Plenty of people out and about in the less than ideal conditions.

Keen to try a Belgium pub, we headed to a Bierhuis mid afternoon to try a couple of the local brews. The beer here is completely different to anything we've had. Full flavoured and strong!

The rigs.

Is been nearly two months now since we were in Ghent, and we've continued to meet people who rave about Bruges. Maybe we over looked it, either way we enjoyed our couple of days here - we could have fitted more sites into our time but it was pretty cold and miserable. The Christmas markets were pretty impressive but the quality of food and products was sub-par compared to Germany...

Thursday, 2 February 2017

Finally.... a movie!

00:47:00 No comments

We've managed to get a fair bit behind on the posting (about 4-6weeks behind) because we've been slogging over the production of a bit of a travel montage for the last couple of months. We manage to film something every now and then, but haven't really had a good chance of actually using it. So I thought it was best to collate it all, and jam it into a long video which I think gives a better perspective then photos. Unfortunately we haven't videoed some of the most beautiful, or amazing experiences because we get caught up in the moment and simply forget, or we get to focused on photos. Anyway, its our first attempt and think it turned out alright.

Subscribe to: Posts ( Atom )