Day 46 - Antwerp, Belgium

Today we woke up early to catch our flight to our next country we visit, Belgium. We got up at 4.45am got ready and we were in the Bolt (European Uber & cheaper than Uber) by 5.35am. On this trip I realised I am happy that we didn’t drive in Poland as our bolt driver was doing 20-30km per hour over the speed limit and only slowed down at a point where the police sit at times.

Our flight flew us to Vienna Airport where we changed to a larger plan to Belgium. We got to Belgium and took the train towards Antwerp.
Our initial plans had us going to Brussels but upon researching we decided Antwerp was a better fit for us,
We got to the station and were greeted to some rain, much different to the weather we were used too.
Antwerp station is said to be the most picturesque train station in Europe, we could see why!
We strolled to our accomodation in the rain and had a go at checking in seeing we were early, it was successful as the room was ready thankfully! We had a shower and got ready to go see some sites.

We walked towards Grote Market along Meir which is the main shopping street in Antwerp. It is the most important shopping area in the country by number of shoppers & by the rent prices. It is said to be the Belgian equivalent to New York’s 5th Avenue!
We stopped off and had our first taste of Belgian waffles at a cart along the mall, I was still hungry after this so went on the hunt for another local dish - Frites! (Belgian Chips!) We went to Frites Atelier, they were amazing! Makes me hungry just writing about them!

We proceeded to see the Cathedral of Our Lady, bit had to miss with the bell tower towering through town! This is where Katie finally got to see what she thought Belgian architecture would look like!
We moved towards Grote Markt, which is the central square of Antwerp, it is situated in the heart of the old city quarter. At the center of Grote Markt is the Braboo Fountain, the statue depicts a mythical Roman solider who supposedly killed a Giant named Durón Antigoon. We walked down to the riverfront where Het Steen, a medieval fortress & Antwerps oldest building is.
I figured it would be rude to come to Belgium and not try a Belgium beer in my first day, so I found a little place well recommended for local brews, JazzCafe de Muze where I had a Lupus Tripel 8.5%. Now I was amazed at the 8.5% but the bartender assured me it had a nice sweet aftertaste, so I had to have a try. It didn’t knock you out being a 8.5% beer and definitely had the sweet aftertaste he told me about, even Katie said it was good.
After a nice beverage we stopped off too Stadsfeestzall, a shopping mall in a neoclassical building. The building had been restored to it’s traditional glory after a fire in 2000.

We went back to the accomodation to relax, I popped out to find some lollies for Katie and we were undecided on dinner. The accomodation in Krakow was great but the aircon was non existent so I was pretty tired from 3 nights of crappy sleep, Katie was tired from my busy schedule of Krakow!
So for dinner we opted to go get Eeetwell Belgium, which is just a health food restaurant offering salads and juice, we were both happy with the choice!
We went back to the accomodation, I saw an add for a Malteser McFlurry, now this isn’t the Malteser McFlurry we get, this is THE Malteser McFlurry with proper Malteser pieces crushed up, not just some Malteser thrown in like a savage. As you can tell I was happy with my find but my hips are not, after my daily intact of diabetic heaven we got back to the accomodation and ended the night with some Netflix.Lue lisää