Easter Adventure Day 4: Antwerp

I promised myself that I would get all my 'Easter Adventure' posts up before July but I failed. I never knew I would be get so busy and tired from work since Clearance started at work. I worked 7 days in a row last week. Phew, glad that is over.

Anyway, to continue on with this series of posts, on the 4th day of our Easter trip, we left Amsterdam (and the Netherlands) by train to embark to the small old city of Antwerp in Belgium!

I was /sooooo/ awake that morning lol

The Antwerp Centraal Station is known for its unique and beautiful interior.

It was really challenging to take a good photo of the station because that ferris wheel was standing in the way! 

We got lost for a bit after we exited the station while trying to find the directions to our Airbnb. But we were actually on the right path, we just doubted our instincts and had to walk back to the station to ask for directions. We then took about 10 mins to walk to our accommodation.

The Airbnb we found was so pretty~ It was a tall, skinny house, and we stayed in the loft on the 3rd floor (imagine carrying your suitcases up three floors' of steep stairs!). The interior was nice and simple, it was comfy and we had everything we needed. 

The owner was not in when we got there, so she asked (I'm guessing) her housemate to welcome us when we arrived. He was really friendly and he's British (from Manchester). I actually recognised his accent right away when he was showing us around the loft.

Our view out from the window~

I can totally imagine myself living in a loft like this by myself, it'll be so nice and cozy.

Just a few days before our trip, I was on Pinterest looking at and pinning photos of these kind of shelves and the different ways of using them.

I just love these skylights.

This is how the house looks like~

After we rested for around 15 mins, we headed out into the town centre~ 

The weather was beautiful that day!

First stop, Museum Aan De Stroom (MAS) which focuses on the history of Antwerp as the most prominent harbour in the 16th century.

All these small images on the wall were photos of all the items once stored in their storage space.

The museum consists of a few galleries, but we only went to the ones that were free to the public. The first one here is the "visible store" which is like an imitation of a warehouse/storage space. The amount of stuff in there is unbelievable. 

This is the main reason we wanted to visit the MAS -  the rooftop view of Antwerp.

The MAS is situated next to the river Scheldt. 

We then walked to the Grote Markt in the heart of the old city which is like a town square with guildhalls surrounding it.

The Cathedral of Our Lady in the middle and the Brabo statue on the left.

The big building behind the statue is the Antwerp City Hall.

The beautiful guild houses - such unique architecture.

and of course, when in Belgium, you can't miss out on the Belgian waffles! 

We found that it was cheapest to have them in Brussels (only €1! not including toppings though). we bought this for around €5 (i think), but it was so so good, the chocolate sauce was so rich and chocolaty~ 

This cute corner store is where we got our waffles from, it's called Crème de la Crème~ The lady serving/making the waffles was very nice too.

The majestic Cathedral of Our Lady.

It's quite a big cathedral and there were all these art being exhibited there. Joon Tian and I were commenting about how empty it would be if the paintings weren't there.

The underground crypt.

This is a modern version of the painting below. I can't remember the name of the artist......

It looks so beautiful with the sun shining on it like that.

It looks surreal.

A medieval fortress called Het Steen.

We didn't really have much on our itinerary for that day, so we just took our own sweet time and chilled on the promenade by the Scheldt. 

Imagine living in one of those modern apartments with big glass windows~

And most of those apartments didn't have their curtains/blinds drawn, so you could look into their homes.

The Antwerpen Printing Museum. We planned to go there if we had the time but tbh, I wasn't that interested in it so we decided to just walk by. lol but it was closed by the time we walked by anyway.

It took us forever to find this small alley! Every online tour guide that I read said it's worth a visit but it was just a small well-preserved 16th century alley. It was pretty cool though, it's just that I had higher expectations of it. lol

This is Antwerp's Mier; it's like London's Oxford Street, where you can do all your shopping along one long street of shops. 

Before we headed back to our Airbnb, we went to two local supermarkets to look for food but we couldn't really find anything unique (I was a bit disappointed with the food selection lol) but we still managed to get something to eat and I got some snacks as well~ 

For the rest of the night, we just relaxed in our cozy loft and went to bed early because we had to wake up early on the next day to catch our train to our next destination.

Overall, just by looking at how grand the buildings in this small town are while strolling around the city makes you think and imagine about how busy and prosperous it was in the 1500s when it took on the role as a major port. But now, it's just a peaceful city with its people living casually.
I am really happy that we got to experience living in a traditional dutch house while we were there (even though it was a short stay), it was a unique experience and definitely one to remember.
Our time in Antwerp was short but I truly enjoyed this city, especially when we just relaxed and soaked in the sunshine on the promenade and enjoyed the breeze along the river Scheldt. I managed to leave with vivid memories and also the emotions that I experienced during my time in this rustic city.

x