2017

Donderdag 30 november 2017

We take the metro to the Central Station of Rotterdam. On arrival there it starts to rain. We are waiting on track 3 for the Thalys to Antwerp (with final destination Lille Europe). At 7:57am the train departs on time and bolts at 300km / h to Antwerp, where we arrive half an hour later. We take the tram to the centre. We alight a few stops too early and we have to walk a little longer to the Bed & Breakfast Le Prince d'Anvers of Frederique on Grote Godaard. The street is undergoing construction work and we have to make our way along the fences and deep pits to get to the front door. We leave the suitcase behind and look around in the Prince’s Room on the first floor. We go and have coffee with cake at Normo, a trendy coffee shop at the Minnebroedersrui. Then we walk to the Grote Markt to buy a 48 hours Antwerp City Card. At €35 this card entitles to unlimited travel by tram and bus and access to many museums in the city. We walk with help of the map to the Rubens House on a side street of the busy shopping street Meir, called Wapper. The façade of the Rubens House is being renovated and the building is in scaffolding. At the cash desk we receive an entrance ticket on presentation of our Antwerp Card and follow the self guided tour through the house. Rubens (1577-1640) was a very successful painter in 16th and 17th century Antwerp. At his peak, he had a studio with three workplaces inside the Rubens House, where he moved in in 1610. He had numerous employees and apprentices, including Anthony van Dyck and Jan Brueghel. There are many copies of Rubens's work in the Rubens House, as well as a few orignals. Also works of contemporaries who belonged to Rubens's own collection. Well-known real Rubens works that are displayed here are Adam and Eve from his early period, a self-portrait and the Annunciation.

After the Rubens House we walk towards the Plantin-Moretushuis. On the way we stop at Lints, a large pastry bakery and tea room. We continue our way and arrive at the Vrijdagmarkt at the Plantin-Moretushuis. Christoffel Plantin was a French bookbinder, who in 1555 in Antwerp, because of physical injury, switched to the printing business. Together with his son-in-law Moretus, he established a printing house that would become the most important in the city. Plantin prints for Catholics, Protestants and humanists such as Justus Lipsius and Simon Stevin. He was the only printer of Missals and Breviaries in the countries that came under the Spanish king. In 1568  the Biblia Regia (in 8 volumes) was printed here and in 1573 the Glossary of Low German Languages, the first Dutch dictionary. The printing house remained for many generations in the Moretus family but had to close in 1866. In 1876 it became a museum. Upon arrival, the employee who only needs to provide us with the guide book starts an extensive introduction about the creation of the printing house. After his exposé, we explore the rooms on two floors on our own. Many books from the printing house can be seen - Bibles, missals, atlases, dictionaries etc), portraits of the family and a room with authentic printing presses. The walls are usually covered with printed leather.

After this museum we have lunch at Le Pain Quotidien at the Steenhouwersvest. A soup and sandwich of the day. After lunch we return to the B & B and rest.  

In the afternoon we take the tram line 7 to the Eilandje (little island). This is a port area on the north side of the city. It was incorporated into the city in the first half of the 16th century as a port area and was called Nieuwstad (new town). As a port area it went downhill in the 20th century, until it was redeveloped into a residential area and a recreational area, around the turn of the century. In the middle of it is the Museum aan de Stroom (MAS), a spectacular design by the Rotterdam architects Neutelings and Riedijk from 2011. We have already been there and we walk on to the buildings of Red Star Line. This shipping company, officially called Société Anonyme de Navigation Belge-Américaine, was a passenger and freight line, which operated a regular service between Antwerp and New York and sometimes also Philadelphia. The company started in 1872 and went bankrupt in 1935 and was taken over by their old rival from Rotterdam, the Holland-America line. Goods were transported from the US to Antwerp and persons on the way back. Some 2 million migrants from Belgium, but also other European countries exchanged their poverty in Europe for a new start in America. The line also had famous passengers, like Albert Einstein. In the museum the history of the line is outlined, but also the process that the emigrants had to go through to get on board. They were washed and disinfected and then extensively examined medically. Initially in the open air on the quay, but after complaints from the travellers in a separate building. It is an attractive exhibition with witness reports, documents, film images and photographs and scale models. On top of the building a watchtower was built, from where we could have beautiful views over the port of Antwerp. Unfortunately, the weather has deteriorated significantly. There is sleat falling down on us.  

We walk back to the tram and ride it to the B & B. Around half past seven we take tram line 4 to restaurant The Jane (2 Michelin stars), by the Dutch star chef Sergio Hermans. The Jane is located in the chapel of the former Military Hospital in 't Groen Kwartier district in Berchem. It is about half an hour away by tram. A beautiful restaurant has been created in the chapel. The kitchen is where the altar and choir used to be. From the ceiling a gigantic chandelier is suspended with dozens of lamps at the end of long poles. We are warmly welcomed and after Jane's own champagne we start a 12-course dinner, accompanied by the Essentials wine arrangement of relatively new but beautiful wines. It is a pleasure. Almost four hours later, a taxi takes us back to the B & B in the old centre.  

Weather: rain and sleat. 6 degrees

Friday, December 1, 2017

Frederique serves us breakfast in the room. Everything is there, except meats and it tastes fine. Afterwards we drink coffee at Norma, after which we take tram 12 to the central station. We agreed to meet here with Erwin Liekens, our guide, which we found through Tours by Locals. He will be guiding us for the next three hours through some lesser-known parts of the city. We start in the beautiful railway station from 1905, which does a lot to impress the arriving traveller. At that time it was outside the city and a boulevard was built to the now no longer walled city. Antwerp experienced an economic boom as a port city after the abolition of the toll on the Westerschelde. You can see that. King Leopold II also put a penny in the bag. From the station we walk into the diamond quarter. Antwerp has four diamond exchanges and is the most important centre for diamond cutting and trade in the world. The diamond trade is partly dominated by orthodox Jews. Their appearance in the streets is almost the only indication of the trade that takes place here. The buildings in the diamond quarter are so bland, ugly and unremarkable that you can hardly imagine that billions are being traded here, a few percent of the Gross National Product of Belgium. Meanwhile, Indian and Pakistani traders have also acquired a position on the Antwerp market. From the diamond quarter we walk into the Jewish quarter along the railway viaduct. That viaduct is also beautifully decorated with turrets and battlements. Many of 20,000 Antwerp Jews are orthodox and ultra-orthodox and traditionally dressed in black costume, long coat, top hat, beard and pipe curls along the temples. In the district there are kosher bakers, butchers and restaurants. Of course also synagogues and thoracic schools. In the 19th century, Antwerp Jews came to Antwerp from Eastern Europe on the run for pogroms and persecution. The community grew from 100 people to 40,000 at the beginning of the Second World War.   We continue to the Zurenborg district. At the end of the 19th century, the Société Anonyme pour la Construction de Maisons Bourgeoises (Limited Liability Company for the Construction of Civic Houses) developed a planned residential area for the well-to-do bourgeoisie who fled the overcrowded city centre on the lands of Baron Osy. The neighborhood is set up around star-shaped squares and is full of Art Nouveau architecture. The central square is the Dageraadplein, where many terraces and café’s can be found. From there we walk via the Draakstraat to the Draakplein, the hub of the LGBT community of Antwerp with Cafe Den Draak and the Pink House. We pass under the railway line and arrive in the other half of Zurenborg. This part has been developed for the rich citizens. Almost exclusively city villas and palaces with exuberant designs. The Cogels-Osylaan is the central axis in this area. We drink coffee in the Wattman (an old name for tram driver) near the former tram depot.

Then we take the bus to Het Zuid. The South was also developed at the end of the 19th century on the land  where the citadel or the Zuidkasteel of Antwerp used to be. This castle was built between 1568-72 by order of the Duke of Alva, but was demolished in the 19th century. The Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Antwerp is centrally located in Het Zuid. The building was completed in 1890 as a new building for the museum that used to be located in the Academy. That building was susceptible to fire in the adjacent buildings and that is why the separate building was designed as one of the first buildings in the world that was specifically designed as a museum. The museum has been closed for refurbishment since 2011 and will open again in 2019. Het Zuid also has star-shaped squares and wide boulevards that connect these squares. On these squares are monuments that commemorate events in Antwerp's history, such as the monument to the termination of the toll on the Scheldt in 1863 at the Marnixplaats. Behind the museum we see a modern statue of William the Taciturn and Marnix van Sint Aldegonde (the founding fathers of the Dutch Republic in the 16th century) with memorial plaques for events of the 80-year war against Spain. During this war Antwerp was reconquered by the Spanish and was thus prevented from joining the independent Dutch Republic. Also in this district are beautiful Art Nouveau buildings.

We walk with Erwin to the Institute of Tropical Medicine where our tour ends. We have lunch in a brasserie on the Volksstraat, after which we take the tram to the B & B. After a break, we walk to the banks of the Scheldt and look out over the shipping quarters. Afterwards we drink a beer in Cafe den Engel on the Grote Markt. After the beer we walk to the Onze Lieve Vrouwen Cathedral. This church dates largely from the 15th century. The tower dominates the entire city. Because of the temporary closure of the museum for Fine Arts, a number of works from the museum have been exhibited here. They are mainly works that were made especially for the church. The permanent collection of the church includes the Descent from the Cross by Rubens from 1612. The altarpiece with the Assumption of Mary by Rubens is also a permanently here. Finally, we go shopping at the Meir at Galleria Inno, the large Belgian department store and in the Stadsfeestzaal. The Stadsfeestzaalwas built in 1908 as an exhibition and party hall, but burnt down almost completely in 2000. In 2007, the building was reopened as a luxury shopping centre, where several monumental parts have been rebuilt.   We drink another Kriek and 'nun Bolleke (Konink) in De Kroeg pub, across from our B & B, after which we have dinner at  Le Zoute Zoen. Great restaurant with a tasty menu for 37 euros.  

Weather: cloudy with sunny periods. 4 degrees.

Saturday, December 2, 2017

After breakfast we take the tram to the station. There we drink coffee at Starbucks before we take the Thalys at 10.30 to Rotterdam. At 11 o'clock we are in Rotterdam and take a ride home with Uber.  

Weather: foggy, 6 degrees

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