Free Tour of Antwerp and Fiskebar

Friday October 19 was a mainly sunny day in Antwerp with a high of 17C.  Great walking weather.   We have found out more information about the history of Boulevard Leopold B&B in a book displayed in the main room called Perfect Imperfect, the Beauty of Accident, Age & Petina.  The house was built in 1890 by a Jewish diamond dealer named Zinner.  After his son Josef Zinner Jnr died in 1934, the house was empty for two years until a professor bought it and lived there with his family for almost 70 years.  The house was very neglected when two of the present owner's friends bought the house in 2005.  We had met the original owners on our first visit to Antwerp.  They spent 10 months refurbishing the house.  Martin, the present owner, took over the running of the B&B in 2010.  He collects cloches and butterflies among other things.  We met Martin in 2011 (our second visit), but he is away celebrating his birthday this weekend.  There are three rooms and two apartments in the B&B.  

Urban development began in this area in the 1870s, and the street was originally named after King Leopold I. However, in 1919, after the revelation of his son King Leopold II's shameful treatment of the people of the Congo, the street was renamed to its present name: Belgielei.

The main floor common area of our B&B

Candles in the morning and beautiful antiques

Butterflies

Breakfast room- we were the only guests on Thursday night and  Friday morning,
but the place will be full for the weekend 

View out to the backyard area

Alain with breakfast: Orange juice, croissants and bread, yogurt and granola, cheese, ham and salami, and  scrambled eggs, coffee or tea

We headed out to explore another area of the city prior to meeting at the Grote Market for our free tour at 1:30 p.m.

Walking down our street- lovely boulevard

Another beautiful flower shop--- Paris and Antwerp both have wonderful flower shops

We stopped at Caffénation for a coffee.

Colourful display of their beans for sale

One Drug, One Nation- Caffénation--- great saucer motto

Outside with our coffees-- cyclist going by

Sunning ourselves at Caffénation

A beautiful building en route

We wandered through a wonderful hip area with beautiful stores and restaurants.  The Ann Demeulemeester store has been in the neighbourhood since 1999 (when it was a pretty dodgy area). She is one of the Antwerp 6.  I read that she left her label in 2013 and that a French designer who had designed for the men's collection since 2010 took over as artistic director. Beautiful store and beautiful expensive clothes.

Outside the Ann Demeulemeester store

The shoe section- there were two floors of beautiful clothes (all way beyond our price point).

Rack of clothes

We met the "Free Tours" guide and fellow tourists at the Grote Markt.  Our guide was César, a Mexican who has been in Belgium for four years.  He originally worked in the Mexican Embassy in Brussels, but was now completing his masters in International Development in Antwerp and is earning some money doing these tours.   We chatted about politics before the tour started.  No love for Trump, of course.  There were three other sets of people on the tour.  One couple from Buenos Aires; one couple living in Brussels, but the woman was from Spain; and a mother and daughter from Vienna.

View of the Cathedral

César told us about the beautiful guild houses.  The golden animals on the tops of the buildings do not represent any particular guild, but were used to identify the various buildings as there were no street numbers back in the day.

Guild Houses

The fox

Statue with the cut off hand-- from a giant who had been extracting money or cutting off hands in exchange for passage in the river.  The giant eventually had his hand cut off and thrown in the river.  This is one story of how Antwerp got its name-- we also saw chocolate hands in one store.

We walked to where there was a remanent of the old city wall.

Relic of the old city walls

César showed us one of the oldest Guild buildings in Antwerp.  The city was heavily damaged during WWII by V-bombs (vengeance bombs), with daily attacks that killed more than 4000 people and destroyed or damaged 90, 000 properties.  Ironically, the damage took place after the city was liberated by the Canadians from the Nazis on September 4, 1944.  After 6 weeks of quiet, Hitler gave the command to start concentrated V-bomb attacks on both Antwerp and London.  By the time Allied forces captured the last launch site on March 29,1945, more V-bombs had fallen on greater Antwerp than had hit London.  Antwerp's ordeal was due to the importance of its harbour.

Oldest guild house still standing after the bombing

Virgin Mary with lamps -- these are found all over the city and César said that in early times, lighting was provided to homes if there was a Virgin Mary (meant to preserve Catholicism).

We then walked down to the river.

Construction site-another mythological figure who could become tall or small and would scare off drunks (in statue he has become a giant and is towering over the drunks).

Cesar, our guide

The River Schledt - 350 kilometre long river

Wind farms in the distance

Minerva statue on the pier

We then wandered into one of the oldest streets in the city, with very old houses.  Most of this area had been destroyed as it was not very sanitary.  However, one developer preserved a few houses which are now mainly restaurants.

One water source for the area where numerous families lived

Another view of the Cathedral

Another Virgin Mary and lamp

We passed the first skyscraper in Belgium built in 1932 and known as the Farmer's Tower. It was designed in art deco style and was originally a Farmers' Bank.  It remains the tallest building and second tallest structure of any kind in Antwerp (after the gothic Cathedral of Our Lady).  No building in Antwerp is allowed to be taller than the Cathedral.

Official name is KBC Tower- known as the Boerentoren (Farmer's Tower)

Example of graffiti -Antwerp

César pointed out a very old restaurant housed in an ivy-clad medieval building that has an amazing interior with huge statues of angels, saints and other figures.  Elfde Gebod serves around 600 different Belgian beers.  Apparently, there are over 1600 different types of registered beers in Belgian and this doesn't even include the craft beers.

Outside of Elfde Gebod

Our last stop was back in front of the Cathedral.  There was a sculpture entitled Nello & Patrasche based on a children's book written in 1872 by English author Marie Louise de la Ramée published under her pseudonym "Ouida".  It is called A Dog of Flanders that features Nello, a poor orphan boy and Patrasche, an abandoned cart dog.  It takes place in Hoboken and Antwerp.  Nello and Pastrasche walk to town together everyday.  They often visit the Cathedral, where Nello admires the paintings by Rubens.  After a series of setbacks they die together from hardship.  The story is one of the best-known children's stories in Japan, having become required reading for schoolchildren.  The statue was created by local artist Batist Verbeulen and was completed in December 2016.  Money was raised from Japan for the sculpture.

Nello and Patrasche---in front of the Cathedral

After our tour we walked back to a square we had passed and had a bowl of soup- I had pumpkin and Alain had leek and broccoli.

Soup, wonderful soup

We then walked over to Meir Street, a major street in Antwerp and decided to check out "The Chocolate Line", a chocolate store our guide had raved about.  It was created by celebrity chef Dominique Persoone, who apparently hosted a birthday party for Mick Jagger in the building.  The building was a former royal palace built in the mid 18th century for a wealthy merchant.  In 1811, it was purchased by the French state on orders of Napoleon. He had the salons embellished and it became his imperial residence in Antwerp.  In 1815, Dutch King William I occupied the building.  Following Belgium's independence in 1830, it became of reception hall for Belgian rulers.  Leopold II added a hall of mirrors in 1905.  The palace was transferred to the Ministry of Culture in 1969 and for a while housed contemporary art.  It closed at the end of the 20th century and reopened in 2010, bought by an organization that restores and opens up historic buildings.  The public can now wander through the building and, of course, buy chocolate.

One dark chocolate marshmallow - very good

Amazing building with lots of rooms for chocolates and chocolate making

The building has a beautiful courtyard

We then walked back to the area near the theatre, where we had chilled the night before.

Toneelhuis-- main theatre in Antwerp

We went to visit the Paul Smith store around the corner.  A wonderful store full of Paul Smith's art collection.  Alain purchased a sweater.

Inside the store

In front of the store

We then walked back to the area we had visited in the morning, for an early dinner at Fiskebar-- a fabulous fish restaurant we had eaten at in both our previous visits to Antwerp.  It was also recommended by our host.  It had recently had a refresh to the decor and it was lovely.  We had a very good server.  I had the haddock special with vegetables and mashed potatoes on the side.  Alain had a whole dorade (sea bream) with coconut rice and vegetables.  The portions were very large, and the food was excellent.

Haddock and vegetables and potatoes

Prior to our meal

Alain with a beautiful dorade

By the time we left, the place was buzzing-- there are a number of other restaurants on the square- all busy on a Friday night.  We walked back to the apartment.  A beautiful day in Antwerp.