Belgium probably doesn’t strike most people as a likely
place for a vacation, or at least not most Americans. It’s not as if there
aren’t plenty of tourists there, but not of the Etats-Unis persuasion. If one
travels a bit to Europe from the States, it takes a while before one hits the
lowlands. The first time we were there was our second family trip to Europe,
which included Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Brussels, back when Kate was around
high school age. Since then we’ve been a lot of different places, but always
held a fondness for Brussels and Bruges, to which we had made a side trip. We
considered various other trips this year, including northern Italy, southern France and
southern Spain, and eventually lit on what we did. One nice attraction was the
ease of getting about, compared to the other possibilities. If we did a
triangle of Antwerp, Ghent and Brussels, we’d never be on a train for more than
an hour—very easy coming and going. And so the decision was made.
We started out in Antwerp. I think it’s the second biggest
city in the country, and there was plenty to see and do. Our trips always
include a lot (lot!) of walking around, exploring. There’s food, of course, and
various arty things to see. We’re interested in architecture, so we can throw
in cathedrals and houses from various periods and just general ambience.
Antwerp’s name possibly comes from a legend about a giant having his hand
tossed into the river, although there are other theories, but the city
celebrates this one with a central statue of a young hero tossing the hand,
plus random hand statues, and hand cookies and hand chocolates and the like. Of
course, Belgians will make into chocolate anything they can shake a stick at,
including naughty bits (which I did not photograph, this being a family-oriented
blog, kinda). I just put up a bunch of shop window pictures on Facebook, most
of them chocolate dealers. There’s an almost endless supply of them. I’ve
always favored Belgian chocolate above all others, so this was sort of like
being in Wonderland. Not that we had every chocolate we saw, but we did have
plenty.
Aah.
Other things edible of note are the white asparagus a la
flamande (one of the chocolate dishes I photographed is a chocolate version of
white asparagus), carbonade flamande (a beef stew), waterzooi (a light chicken
or fish stew), and, most famously, moules frites. We ate all of these over the
course of the trip. Belgium is also famous for its beers, which deserve said
fame. They are unique, and there’s quite an array of light and dark, many of
which are way more alcoholic than our norm. You get spoiled by them. They’re
also remarkably cheap, selling in restaurants for about three bucks. You can’t
get a bartender to piss in a glass for you in the US for three bucks. (Although
I’m just guessing on that, having never actually ordered a glass of piss at a
bar, at least now knowingly.)
Anyhow, the take on Antwerp was, a very pleasant city but I
wouldn’t put it on anyone’s must-do list. If you like Rubens, though, there is
his house, plus a great unexpected collection of Pre-Columbian artifacts at a
wonderfully designed (from the inside) museum called the Stroom that looks like
a brick monstrosity from the outside, and a truly enchanting little zoo. For
us, it was the starting point, the place to detox from jet lag for a few days.
It was easy to get to from the Brussels airport by train, our hotel was right
out the door of the train station, and then a couple of days later we were on
our way to bring the good news to Ghent.
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