Belgium - Holland Trip-Day 3

I need to get moving with posting the rest of the days of the trip because I am starting to forget the details.

Day 3, Friday, started with a train trip north to Antwerpen, Belgium. This would be our home base while we went to the races over the weekend. Although it is not on the coast, Antwerpen is an old port city. I guess it served as a trading center to places further up the Scheldt River. You can read more of its history here. It did and still has a huge diamond trade and sales industry.

This is one of our first experiences with Antwerpen.

From B&H Day 3

Beautiful isn't it. This is the train station and it is going through quite the construction and expansion phase. This photo is of the old part of the station looking at the ticket booths. The rail system and public transit is huge in Belgium as with most of the rest of Europe. We would have been able to get everywhere using the transit system, even the tiny town and farm area where the races where (in Holland.) Unfortunately it would have taken almost 2 hours by transit to do what would take us 30 minutes in the car, so with a pregnant women in her 6th month we decided to take the more sensible mode of transit for our situation.

Our hotel was only a 5 minute walk from the train station. We were a little anxious about this hotel because it was dirt cheap. We had booked everything ahead of time online it this was over 50% cheaper that anything else we had booked or had seen available. We had also read that the area close to where the hotel was in Antwerp was the best side of town. To our surprise the hotel was brand new, very comfortable and the neighborhood was great. I didn't get a picture of the room. It was a bit on the smaller side but for what we paid we didn't care, especially since we wouldn't be spending much time it it.

Melissa took a nap while I went and took a short walk to pick up the rental car. The hotel website said that it didn't have off street parking so I was expecting to have to drive all over the city trying to find a place to park. There as an underground parking garage pretty much below the hotel. I guess since it is a public garage, the hotel can't say that they have off street parking. Since I didn't have to drive all around the city looking for a parking spot, I decided to do it anyway. What was going to be a quick drive to scout out the city and to get my bearings ended up with me driving around for about and hour. I knew which direction I need to go to get back to the hotel but with all the one way roads, streetcar tracks and streets that were very un-New York City grid like, it was hard to navigate back to the hotel. I am rather good looking at a map and figuring out where to go when driving but this city really, and I mean really challenged me. I drove around France twice and went through many cities and only got disoriented once. Antwerp had me going around in many many circles, many different times. I always knew which direction I need to go, I just couldn't find the right roads that would take me there. It was the kind of place where you could take 4 consecutive right hand turns and end up now where near where you started.

Our friend Doug who we met up with in Brussels was going to the cross races too so he was also staying in Antwerp, but in a hostel a little further away from the train station. We met up with him in the early afternoon for some sight seeing. After a little more navigation trouble we ended up at the Antwerpen Royal Museum of Fine Arts.

From B&H Day 3

Inside where Many paintings by Peter Paul Rubens (no, no that PeeWee Herman guy) and other classic Flemish artists, as well as a modern art exhibit with many interesting pieces.

From there we headed up to the old city center where the Grote Markt and city hall was.

From B&H Day 3

It was cold, dark, windy and we were hungry so we didn't do a ton of exploring. We found the Irish pub and went in to warm up and get a quick dinner recommendation. They sent us just across the street to a rotisserie chick place where we had a great dinner and snapped this shot.

From B&H Day 3

The people here were super friendly and were really excited to hear that we were in town for the races.

We ended the night early to get plenty of rest for the early rise to get to the races and to have plenty of energy to try to keep warm while standing outside all day long. You can see more photos from Day 3 here.Also you can check out the map view which shows the location each photo was taken.