Antwerp - Belgium
My road trip came to an end at Antwerp. It started with a rainy afternoon but luckily the last few daylight hours cleared the rain away and I started exploring. My hostel the Antwerp Backpackers Hostel was located a little bit further from the center in an area full of immigrants and thus a different flair than the other cities I have seen before. An employee of the hostel gave me the tip to walk to the not far apart Graffiti Wall and if it wouldn’t have been that close, I think I would have never gone. Thanks to her I did, because the quality and quantity of artwork in this are is stunning! I took tons of photos and you will only see a glimpse of it. It was actually hard to decide which ones to upload and which ones not to. I even met a Belgian photographer and we talked while shooting pictures. It was fun, because we were inspiring each other. From there I explored a little bit more till the sun went down. After that I had a really fun night at the hostel with awesome conversations and delicious homemade Belgian chocolate genever.
Graffiti Wall
Art Nouveau Quarter
Diamant District & Central Station
City Center
The next day was cloudy but clear of rain. I started with a great breakfast with home cooked bread and good talks – seriously, I really recommend the hostel because of the love the owners put into it! So, I took the tram into the city and started walking around all the spots I marked beforehand on my offline map. Unluckily I had bad luck because a few of the spots where under construction, as if the Belgian heard that I was complaining about the not well-preserved buildings and at least in the more popular cities start investing and renovating the highlights for further preservation.
Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal Antwerpen from behind...
... and from the front under construction.
Only a few tourist posing ;)
Sint-Annatunnel.
Vlaaikensgang - Cute little alley you easily walk by...
... with a really cute restaurant in the middle of it.
The fountain Standbeeld van Brabo in the middle of a market place.
Sint-Carolus Borromeuskerk.
Belgian chocolate in the making.
No matter where I went in Antwerp art was all over the city, not only in the graffiti street. This is why I decided to end this blog and also this road trip with a few pictures from all over the city. I hope you liked my perspective of Luxembourg, a small glimpse of the Netherlands and Belgium. If you missed the last blogs feel free to have a look at them. Never visited so many cities and countries in such a short period of time. It was awesome 😊
A different style of selfie ;)
I only had till afternoon because there was a long way driving home in front of me. After such a short sleeping period I wasn’t sure if I would feel fit enough to make it, but I armed myself with food, tea and an energy drink and drove home 8 hours straight with only two short stops, one at a gas station an a second one for a snack. Never drove that long in a row, but it was totally fine with some great music guiding me 😊 I was super exhausted and was glad that I planned two days of rest to handle some things back home before I had to go back to work. This road trip was amazing and I took away so many impressions, but I was exhausting as well, but I’m already looking ahead for a hopefully soon to be next road trip!
The road trip in total took me 2123 km in 13 days through 9 cities and 4 countires: Trier, Luxembourg, Liège, Maastricht, Leuven, Brussels, Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp and finaly back to Berlin.
Screenshot from google maps.