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
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