The World's most beautiful train station

On our way to Belgium: a tight squeeze for the freighter we shared a lock with. Counterintuitively, the water level goes up as we get closer to the Atlantic as so much of Holland is below sealevel

we docked across the harbor from Antwerp's fancy museum the MAG. A good reference point to find our boat in a big city

The walls are curved glass. We later went to the top of it (10 floors) for good city views

cute street art abounds

lots of Art Nouveau architecture

a really old church

fancy guild houses in the main square

the town emblem is a hand. Apparently there was a giant who held the town hostage demanding heavy tolls to go through the river Schelde. Penalty for not paying the toll was your hand cut off. So the guy on top managed to cut off  the giant's hand and throw it into the Schelde. So the name 'antwerp' is derived from 'handthrow'  Aside from numerous hand sculptures around the city, there are chocolate hands and special hand cookies

Nello and his dog Patrasche. This was from the book A Dog of Flanders.  My friend and her brother were quite thrilled to find this as their grandparents so liked the book (published in 1872), they named their son Nello, a name I hadn't heard of before my friend. They weren't the only fans of the book. Apparently the Japanese especially like the story and Toyota financed this cool statue. The rain had the good effect of keeping the Japanese tourists off the head. When it was dry, Japanese children were all over it posing

Cathedral of Our Lady square

the Cathedral draped in scaffolding

inside

huge Peter Paul Rubens, an Antwerp native

crypt

Belgians are known for lace making

interesting building detail

train station

It is quite beautiful

one of the hands greeting newly arrived passengers

MAG at dawn

Chinatown with train station

A week before our trip I noticed that it would rain every day we were on the barge and were biking but fortunately it just rained  on our non biking day in Antwerp. From the Van Gogh museum, I bought a rain parka with one of his designs on it. One size fits all. I put everything under it so I looked like the Michelin man with artistic squiggles. I gave my travel umbrella to my friend though she had the option of taking a huge golf umbrella the boat supplied.  I saw several of these Van Gogh parkas. Yep I looked ridiculous but it worked. Silly me, I thought Antwerp was in Holland (though they do have a city with that name) not the second city of Belgium known for its diamond industry (diamonds do not interest me). Before we got off the boat to explore, we had some sort of Belgian lamb stew chock full of potatoes. Wasn't a fan. After breakfast, we were all on deck to watch us go through  series of locks.

I took many photos of this beautiful city. Will share later.