A Dry Spring Day.

A spring day with no rain and this on a weekend! We had to make use of it and have an excursion or as they say here “een wandel maken”.

We caught the bus to Stads Park just off Antwerp Central and it’s shopping street, Meir. Stads Park is quite large and I didn’t see a small sliver of it. The buildings encircling the park are a mixture of old and new. The police station was a beautiful old building.

 We may not have been having rain but it was still a bit nippy out. Speculoos’ Nederlands is coming on beautifully. All she kept saying was “Eend, eend!” (eend is a duck). It’s amazing how well she’s adapting being so young.

The play equipment in the park is fantastic. There are quite a few interactive things to do there for the kiddies and Speculoos loved playing on the equipment and using the jugs and buckets provided to pour sand everywhere!

After a good play session, it was time to go and find some lunch. All the shops in Antwerp are closed on a Sunday, I love those old world values, but there’s a market that runs near Rubens’ House so we headed there. It still fascinates me that I live in such a beautiful place.

We had “Bradworst” rolls for lunch from a vendor at the market. Bradworst is a sausage in a roll much like a very thick hotdog sausage but the Belgians serve it with a sauce (mustard being the most complimentary although you have a choice of ketchup and some others) and some sauerkraut. I really like them with the sauerkraut but Mrs Awesome prefers them as they were serving them during the Christmas season with onion instead of sauerkraut.

On our “wandel” we saw this pretty catholic piece on the side of this building. Many of the buildings have little religious icons on them, usually above the door. This one was a little exceptional.

We went past the KBC building which was the first skyscraper in Europe. By today’s standards not really that high, but I think it’s a very pretty time period piece. The friezes on its façade are really beautiful and bear witness to a time when art, form and beauty were as important as structural integrity.

The KBC building.

Soon we were upon the Cathedral at a place called Groenplaats and the bells were chiming the time. Every quarter hour is such a special moment when the air is alive with the sweet chiming sounds.

The cathedral from a nearby market plein.

Ciao for now.