Land of Mussels and Ale

Sept. 22-24

Antwerp is OK, but it isn’t Delft.

The bars and cafes have the relaxed atmosphere that we have come to enjoy on our trips to Europe. 

When you sit back in your chair, nobody comes running up right away to ask if you want to put the leftovers in a box to go.

In general, the city we’ve seen is a little frayed. The fronts of the buildings in the old city center are coated with soot of long standing.

We’re also seeing it at a disadvantage. Much of the city seems to be under construction, which makes it difficult to navigate and creates a lot of visual debris.

Much of what we see is plain, utilitarian architecture mixed with grander stuff of earlier times. Case in point: one intersection has two buildings of the Beaux Arts age facing each other. That stuff is good fun, full of baroque niches and allegorical figures. Always makes me think of Stanford White and the girl in the velvet swing. 

But today the fun stuff is mainly on the upper stories.

Ground level is devoted to commercial logos, including some for the United Colors of Benetton and some European brands that were unfamiliar. The Benetton store did have a funny touch—three mannequins in dresses, black, yellow, and red, for the Belgian flag.

The central rail station looks like an opera house, with a 19th century iron and glass wing added. It’s really fun. Across the street is the diamond district—one after another, shops displaying diamond jewelry. We read somewhere that Antwerp is the world’s largest diamond center. 

The Cathedral of Our Lady is one of the city’s showpieces. We went there on Sunday to catch the noon service.

The huge organ took part, but the service was entirely spoken. It loses something that way.

I learned how to pronounce “Heilige Geeste.” 

After the mass ended, the church was open to visitors, so we got to see the four Rubens works. Twin works, “The Raising of the Cross” and “The Descent from the Cross,” are mounted at the front of the nave on either side of the chancel.

Both are very large pieces, generally somber with flashes of color.  

An abstract hangs on the same wall not far from the “Descent.” Joanna noticed that a white and a red blob echo the composition of the Rubens painting.  When we drew nearer, we saw that it was named “Homage to Rubens.” 

Rubens’s “The Assumption of the Virgin Mary” is the main altarpiece. We didn’t get a close-up view, but could see that it represented the Virgin Mary being escorted to heaven through a baroque array of clouds by a band of equally baroque angels.

A fourth piece, “The Resurrection of Christ,” was originally created for a tomb. It is now in a side chapel. 

When we first started to explore the church, we saw a rendition of the descent from the cross. It was that still blocky style of the transition from medieval to renaissance.

I was standing there thinking: Is this the Rubens?

Of course, it wasn’t. It was part of a temporary art exhibition of altarpieces, mostly commissioned by guilds.

The fishmongers, for instance, are represented by a triptych based on the Biblical story of the miraculous haul of fish.

The altars are gone, and it wasn’t clear to me where they may have stood.

Not until we got to Rubens’s house later in the afternoon.

Tours of the church exit through the gift shop. I was used to that from the Churches in Delft. What Delft church gift stores didn’t have, though, is souvenir four-packs of abbey ale on sale.

We stopped for waffles in the square outside the cathedral and got directions for getting to Rubens’s house.

The square has a curious monument. The paving stones rise like a blanket over a child sleeping with a pet. 

It represents Nello and Patrasche, an orphan who takes up with a stray dog. They are characters in a 19th century novel. They eventually die together, from neglect or starvation, in the cathedral.

The work was sponsored by Chow Tai Seng, a Chinese jewelry company, acknowledging “the great contribution of Antwerp’s diamond industry to China.”

Rubenshuis is a museum exhibiting works by Rubens and by friends and associates One of the paintings shows the interior of the cathedral in the 1600s. 

The guild altars were not placed in side chapels. They stood in the nave, one by each pillar, which is where the temporary displays of the altarpieces are currently set up.

Rubenshuis is like a small palace, baroque in detail, which is appropriate enough when you consider who lived there. 

Rubens was the principal painter of the area during his lifetime, and he came from a well-off family to begin with. So he wasn’t short of money. I think he owned a villa or two elsewhere.

One of the headliners of the museum is a self-portrait of Rubens. It has been recently restored to bring out more of the lighter colors. It shows a young man with blond hair and small touches of color in the pleats of his black clothes.

We took a break in the courtyard behind the house where we admired the masonry, the ornamental heads, the flower garden, and a little girl practicing her new-found skill of walking. 

We stopped at the main square, Grote Markt, at a pub called Den Engel. I was misinformed. They don’t serve dinners there, only snacks and drinks. 

We stayed for a while, though, because the regulars were starting to come in, and the house was clearing the center of the floor for dancing.

The DJ ran through some American standards. A lady sitting at the bar and a gent in the back who could have been my age got together and proved to be quite astonishing. At one point, the lady was up by herself doing a merengue.

We crossed the square to a restaurant called Taverne Braboke. I’m not sure, but it would seem that the name refers to a large bronze monument in the middle of the Grote Markt.

It is dedicated to Silvius Brabo, the mythical founder of Antwerp. He killed a troublesome giant who was in the habit of cutting a hand off anyone who refused to pay for crossing the River Scheldt.

Brabo killed the giant and threw his hand into the river. According to this story, “Antwerp” derives from “Handwerpen,” or “hand-throwing.”

I had a bucket of steamed mussels with French fries. Both dishes were invented here. Joanna had something new to me that also could be a Belgian specialty, a fish stew with lobster sauce. 

I had dinner with a Westmalle Trappist ale. There was a hint of sweetness in it, but not too much. It went well with the mussels.

Monday we took a long walk, down to Central Station and the diamond district, where we strolled past stores, one after another, displaying diamonds. Occasionally a rack of emeralds or rubies, but mostly diamonds.

Joanna was preoccupied with the bling. I was a little uneasy for some reason. An old dude with a shopping bag came up to the window where Joanna was. 

I stood back. Was he waiting for a chance to drop a wallet or a purse into that bag and stroll off? I’ve had people try to do that before. 

I’ll never know because he moved off after a minute or so. Others came close from time to time. Probably with no ill intention, but it never hurts to keep an eye open.

After a bit of wandering, we sat at a cafe for drinks and let other people do the walking for a while. 

We actually made it back to the hotel in one piece and rested for a while.

Lots of places are closed on Monday, so we opted for an off-beat place called Bavet, which means “bib.” It serves unconventional pastas and disavows all responsibility for stains on shirts.

One dish, called Oh My God They Killed Kenny, has a pink sauce made with thyme and mushrooms. We shared a small portion of that with a few meatballs added and some Emmenthaler. 

I know. I never imagined putting that on pasta, either.

Turns out, it was pretty good.

We followed that with a house version of bolognese, which was even better.

The wine was a merlot called Red Zeppelin.

Tuesday it rained on and off, so we decided to go to the Grote Markt and sit in some of the cafes.

We started at a place advertising Japanese soul food. It wasn’t my kind of thing. I had some tough stir-fried pork over rice. Joanna had a Japanese take on char shu.

We started walking toward the Brabo statue when it started to rain in earnest. We ducked into a pub called Balto’s, where I ordered a bottle of Duvel.

I nursed it for a while as we watched tour groups photograph the statue.

Later I tried something new to me, Tangerlo, which was on draft. It didn’t taste like a lager. 

We were the only customers in the place for most of the afternoon, so nobody cared that we just sat there. 

We wound up staying till dinnertime. 

I had a burger, which was all right, but nowhere near as good as the one Joanna had the other day at Cafe Belvedere in Delft.

Joanna had pasta carbonara. Not bad, but not authentic. It was made with bacon instead of guanciale and had cream added to the egg yolk.

We had our long slickers on, and the rain eased up enough that we could walk the mile or so back to the hotel without getting soaked.

Tomorrow we make for Ghent.

Be well, all, and keep your mussels toned.

Harry

Turfmarkt, Beestenmarkt

Sept. 19-21

We took a slightly different route on Thursday and chanced on the street market.

Actually, we were near the Old Church when Joanna noticed an unfamiliar spire. That’s not the New Church. No, it isn’t.

So we strolled down a narrow alley that led us to a wide street called Brabantse Turfmarkt. It was filled with vendors’ stands under tents. 

We stopped at a stand selling dried fruit and other snacks in bulk. Joanna bought a bag with vegetable chips, almond brittle, and a light, nutty confection whose name I don’t know. We’ve been nibbling out of that bag on and off for the past couple of days.

Joanna asked the vendor if the market is a regular event. He said yes but it is usually set up in the central market square between the New Church and Town Hall.

That’s the area that has been taken over by carnival rides, so the market was here, a short block or two from the usual place.

We weren’t in the market for produce, meat, or other groceries, but we strolled around anyway.

The spire, we found, is on Burgwal, a side street by the Turfmarkt. It is a 19th century building housing a Catholic parish, dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

The name, Maria van Jesse, threw me off a bit, but Wikipedia gives an explanation. The title refers to Mary as the root or sprig of Jesse, the father of King David, who was also one of Mary’s ancestors.

According to the Wiki, Jesus was originally considered the root of Jesse, but then he became identified more as the bloom from the tree. The Latin word for twig, or shoot, is “virga,” which is easily confused with “virgo,” as Mary is usually called.

A short way from the church we found another open space, called the Beestenmarkt. I like this one a lot. It’s ringed with bars and the central square is dedicated to tables.

There’s a funny cow on a pedestal in the middle of the square. The pedestal is marked black and white like a cow’s hide. The cow is in primary red, yellow, and blue.

The site once held a Franciscan monastery, but it disappeared during the Reformation and eventually the space that was left became the site of a cattle auction, until some time in the last century.

It’s here that we got to spend an hour or more engaged in one of the most enjoyable pastimes in Europe. We drank beer—well, I drank beer; Joanna had hot chocolate—at a sidewalk cafe.

This one was the Belgian Beer Cafe Belvedere. And the view was truly beautiful. We sat across the street from the square, which is shaded by huge plane trees. The buildings are of various ages. Some could be 300 years old or more.

Joanna took the photo of the day, Harry doing what he does best, unwinding at a table in front of a glass of beer. 

Besides the primary colored cow on the cow-colored pedestal, there is a strange drawing on the pavement in the Cattle Market. It’s a picture of a painter drawing various subjects, but he has a long head. 

Footprints on the sidewalk show where you are supposed to stand. We tried it, but couldn’t get the joke.

Then a couple came along and photographed the painting. The man showed us the result. You can’t see it with your unaided eye, but a camera can uncover the illusion. The painter’s head appears to emerge from the pavement. 

Later we went to dinner at Lef, a restaurant across from the hotel. We had a grilled turbot, which was fun, and a dish of cous-cous with vegetables. Then we called it a day.

We enjoyed the Belvedere so much that we decided to spend our last afternoon in Delft there.

We strolled along the canal, admired the swans, snapped shots of the New Church spire—all the usual stuff. Then it was time for a pint.

So, with all the unshakable confidence of the uninformed, I led Joanna to some place in the wrong direction.

I had to get my tourist map out and look for Brabantse Turfmarkt. I had been there yesterday and had forgotten the way. Oh, the humiliation.

But we found it. We took a table outside the Cafe Belvedere and ordered sandwiches. Joanna had a burger with cheese and bacon, which she said was right up there with the artery-clogging number she had at Vortex in Atlanta last winter.

I zeroed in on another part of the menu and opted for old cheese with fig compote. 

White bread or brown? Brown bread, please.

It was as terrific as it sounds. So was Joanna’s burger. I know because she needed help finishing it.

After a break for a couple of hours at the hotel, we went out again for a light supper. After those sandwiches, we weren’t in the mood for a full meal. 

We had a caprese salad at Fontanella, near the hotel.

Saturday, we were due to check out at 11. We left the bags at the hotel to go to the curio market, which was being held near the Old Church.

Joanna bought a silver wire loop that fits around her neck to hold a pendant.

It’s funny. There was a time I’d have gotten a kick out of looking at all this curious stuff—everything from old 45 rpm records to crucifixes. Now all I see is clutter—I guess because I had to pay so much to have my house cleared out when I sold it.

We took a cab to the train station. We might have taken the tram, but I didn’t want to lug the bags.

The ticket machine wouldn’t accept my card because it don’t have a PIN. Get this: I had to pay in coins—56 euros, one at a time, for two tickets.

That said, I still hold that European trains are far and away one of the best ways to go. They make American trains look like a joke.

After we left Delft, we had to change about half way to Antwerp at a station called Breda. We ran into a problem there because of work on the tracks. 

The trains to Antwerp had been rescheduled, but there was no way for us to know that.

We saw that one, due to leave at 2:25, was canceled. That was confusing. According to a board downstairs, the train was supposed to leave at 2:42.

We found some help below. We asked some railroad people about the discrepancy and the cancellation.

That’s when we learned about the rescheduling. Even the track number was different from the normal Saturday track. Good thing we asked.

We wound up getting to the Holiday Inn Express in Antwerp around 4:30.

The hotel is a short distance—pretty much walking distance—from the historic old center of town. But we are in a modern Euro neighborhood that actually reminds us of the area where we stayed in Geneva a year ago.

We went to Da Giovanni, an Italian restaurant not far from the hotel, for osso bucco. That stuff is so good. You pull apart the meat with your fork.

We had that with an ample supply of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo.

We finished with tiramasu and a glass of nero d’Avola.

A nice way to end a day of frustrating travel.

Be well, all, and don’t forget to check your directions.

Harry

Churches, Palaces, and Parliament

Sept. 17-18

We are in the middle of old stuff in Delft. We step out of the hotel into a plaza covered with plane trees. A huge specimen outside the door may be what the Hotel de Plataan is named for. 

A canal flows on the right toward the New Church.

It feels like a slightly quieter Amsterdam—except for the Market Square right now, which has been taken over by carnival rides and thumping music. But you can’t hear that more than a block away. The old buildings and narrow streets act as a baffle for the noise.

So far, we have visited the New Church and the Old. Both of them were Gothic monuments that were gutted and made bland by Protestant iconoclasts. 

Some of the old spectacle was returned in the New Church with the monument to William of Orange. He is not, as I had first thought, the Dutch king of England. 

This William, Prince of Orange, is known as the Father of the Fatherland, because he led the initial revolt against Spanish rule in the Low Countries. 

William was murdered at his palace, the Prinsenhof, a few blocks from here, by an assassin working for the Spanish king and was buried in the New Church. There is now a huge crypt under the church floor where the Dutch royals are buried.

Except the royals at the Nieuwe Kerk, nobody is buried in a Dutch church any more.

It was common in the old days, if your family was prominent. According to the history brochure they hand out at the church, the stench could be overwhelming. It says that may be the source of the term “stinking rich.”

The Old Church is the resting place of Vermeer and Leeuwenhoek. There are monuments to naval heroes, including one for an admiral named Piet Hein, not to be confused with the Danish inventor of Grooks.

After we stood on Vermeer’s bones, we decided to celebrate the other end of his life by taking dinner at the Flying Fox on Voldersgracht. This is one of Vermeer’s two birthplaces. The other is a souvenir shop. 

We started with a duck leg, which I found perfect. It had a fruit-based sauce, which made it delightfully dark red inside and out.

It was too rare for Joanna, who ate some of the darker ends. 

She moved on to the second course, sea bass in lobster sauce. 

I was busy with the rest of the duck. I don’t get the chance to have it very often, so when it comes my way, I enjoy it.

Joanna gave me a sample of the fish. It was good too, but I preferred the duck.

Besides the Delft churches, the other reason we are here is to visit Mauritshuis, a palace turned art museum in the Hague. It’s easy to reach: a stroll past the Oude Kerk to the tram station, which is a block or so down the road from a windmill.

Looks like the Ij Brewery in Amsterdam.

It’s a 25-minute ride to Den Haag Centrum.

You walk past the Ministries of Defense and Justice.

We stopped at a little park to eat a banana that Joanna had kept from breakfast and then went around the corner to the gate of the museum.

Mauritzhuis is not a large museum, but it’s packed with interesting things. 

I expected more Vermeers, but only saw three. One is “The Girl With the Pearl Earring.” 

The other is a group of figures representing Diana and her nymphs. One appears to be washing Diana’s foot with a cake of soap. 

There is an almost dreamlike presence in many Vermeer paintings. The illusion of light on fabric was there, but the rest lacked something. I can’t say exactly what.

It was also much larger than any other Vermeer I’ve seen so far. Agreed: That’s not saying much. There are three dozen paintings attributed to Vermeer in the world, and I may have caught up to fewer than a third of them.

But even so, I expect everything to be the size of “The Milkmaid,” “The Astronomer,” or “The Music Lesson.” 

This was at least four, maybe even six, times the scale. Wall size instead of niche size.

The third Vermeer is a highly detailed long view of Delft.

We’ve been watching “The Tudors” again on Netflix, so Joanna got a charge out of finding a Hans Holbein portrait of Jane Seymour. He rendered her with a tight little mouth and her chin drawn back defensively.

There is a striking Rubens heavily influenced by Caravaggio, “Old Woman and Boy With Candles.” It has that play of light and dark bringing out the gritty realism of the faces.

Another interesting piece is a collaboration by Rubens and Breughel, “The Garden of Eden With the Fall of Man.” Rubens painted Adam, Eve, the Serpent, and the tree. Also a horse watch the couple take the apple. 

Breughel did most of the animals and the plants. My favorite part is a spotted cat, maybe a leopard, swatting its paw at an inquisitive bull.

The museum is next to an impressive complex of  buildings.

The road passes through arches in the walls. Only official vehicles drive there, but the way is filled with pedestrians and bicyclists who weave in and out of crowds.

We had no idea what it was. We went through the arch into a courtyard. There was a church and large old buildings full of windows. I wondered if it might be a university campus.

Joanna thought to ask someone standing by one of the doors. We were at the Dutch national parliament buildings and didn’t know it.

Later, back in Delft, we had a hankering for pasta. We had passed a number of pizzerias, so I did some research. Reviews for Dolce Amaro on Voldersgracht made it look promising.

The menu online included spaghetti carbonara made with guanciale and egg. The real thing. So that’s were we went.

The carbonara was indeed excellent. So was Joanna’s spaghetti vongole.

The house red was a Montepulciano d’ Abruzzo. We took a half liter of that. It’s one of my favorite varieties of wine. It came in an earthenware pitcher, which may have made it even tastier.

That’s all for now, gang. 

Love to all, and may everybody stay well. 

Harry