Antwerpen

Saturday morning. Philip and Denis are working in the garden, so I thought I'd post an update after my two-day trip to Flanders.

I've decided that Belgium is a strange country. Often the two regions seem like two seperate countries and I'm not actually sure what holds them together. Unlike Switzerland where there's a real sense of being Swiss there doesn't seem to be any sense of being Belgian here. In Bruxelles, being the capital, everything has to be bi-lingual, but as soon as you leave Bruxelles everything reverts to Flemish (Bruxelles is completely surrounded by Flanders) even on the train! Liege of course is a French speaking city, but to get here you have to cross part of Flanders and for the period that the train is in Flanders all the announcements are only in Flemish - even though there are lots of French speakers on the train! Madness. Of course the same goes for Wallonie - the French-speaking part of the country. Everything is in French. In Flanders most people can speak English, but I'm not sure that many people can speak English very well here in Wallonie, so I'm glad that I can speak French.

I had a great time in Antwerpen. It's a vibrant, beautiful city (great summer weather helped!) with lots to see and do. On the way to Antwerpen I stopped off in the small town of Mechelen, which is half-way between Bruxelles and Antwerpen. Philip said he'd never been there, but it sounded from the write-up in my guidebook it sounded interesting. The centrepoint of the city is the beautiful cathedral - St. Romboutskathedraal - which completely dominates the town centre and as my guidebook says takes your breath away. The cathedral and the Museum of Deportation and Resistance - a museum, which chronicles the dreadful deportation and massacre of Belgium's Jewish population by the NAZIs - were definitely the highlight of my morning in Mechelen.

There's so much I could say about Antwerpen. Like Mechelen, Antwerpen is completely dominated its catherdral - another Gothic masterpiece - but what I enjoyed most about the city was just wandering around, exploring the small squares and back streets. The picture is of the Grote Markt, which like the Grand Place in Bruxelles is surrounded on all sides by the most amazing buildings and is the focal point of the city. The summer weather definitely gave the city a real buzz. While in Antwerpen I also managed to visit a few museums, including the Fine Art Museum, which has an excellent collection of the Flemish masters. It's very easy to be museumed out though, so I didn't want to overdo it.

This evening we're heading to Bruxelles for the opening of an exhibition that Philip is involved in and tomorrow we're going to the Ardennes, which I've heard are very beautiful. Philip and Denis have some guys here working on the house and they've just started drilling, so I think it's time to find somewhere a little quieter.