Wednesday 31 December 2014

Antwerp

Antwerp had been on my list of cities to visit ever since I read about it on WishWishWish a few years ago. Sadly the weather was less than stellar. It was actually quite horrible with super crazy winds and rain for the large part of the day. It was the weirdest thing leaving the train station and just hearing Dutch everywhere. Despite having a good friend -Sunbear- who is Dutch, I actually don't know any Dutch at all. Except for gezellig.

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What I loved about Belgium was the streetart.

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Also walked though the red light district where the women were in the window, scantily dressed. Weird. Also very awkward to have a lot of solo guys casually strolling through that area.

Perhaps it was the weather, but I didn't enjoy Antwerp very much. It seemed so shopping oriented with the super long shopping strip. I guess it's because I didn't come all this way to simply shop at Zara, H&M, Topshop, Forever 21 etc. Then again, I'm not much of a shopper.

Also, I hope everyone has a wonderful (and safe) New Year! To those who read my blog, thank you for commenting and being so wonderful. See you in 2015 (yikes!!!).

6 comments:

  1. Lovely pictures, as always!!! :)

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  2. Ah, that's a proper shame. I guess I partly agree, Antwerp is absolutely gorgeous when the sun is out. But it does has some charm in the rain, I mean - your pictures are gorgeous. I've only been twice in Antwerp and the fact that I'm Dutch helps a bit too, but I think Antwerp has some very enchanting backalleys with lovely shops. But just like you said, walking around the Meir only is kind of not worth it. - Have a happy new year! ;)

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    1. Happy new year too ! Yeh I think if I ventured even further out there would have been more charming places. I pretty much just headed to the river and off to the west side.

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  3. Ah bummer about that typical Belgian weather! Antwerp is really nice in summer time though. I'm Belgian and I've lived in Antwerp for a short time, so I can definitely say that the Meir (shopping street) is really not representative of Antwerp. On your next visit, I recommend checking 't Zuid (the south quarter) of Antwerp. It's the more trendy area of Antwerp with lots of art/fashion students around and just generally the place to be for the locals.

    I used to live not so far from the red light district (gosh that sounds so wrong saying it like that) and the shortest route for me to the grocery store was walking through it. Though sometimes I did take a detour because seeing girls that are even younger than yourself in those windows is a very depressing sight.

    Kristien
    www.cosmiccloudcadet.com

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    1. Thanks for that ! I headed north across the river and also West but not south. Next time!

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  4. I've never been to Antwerp and I don't really know much about it! Too bad about that weather though, wind and rain can make it hard to enjoy a city.

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