Belgium - October 3 - Antwerp

Another morning in Belgium, another train ride - this time to Antwerp. I don't know why, but I expected Antwerp to be more "modern" than the other Belgian cities, and certainly parts of it were. But the Old Town area was just a beautiful as what we've seen so far in Ghent and Bruges with the, now expected, stair step roofline architecture. In fact, the Antwerp Centraal train station where we arrived was easily the most grand and most beautiful train station that we've seen anywhere on our travels. If you ever visit Belgium, you will quickly notice how often you hear about and/or see mention of Peter Paul Rubens - who must be the most famous Belgian artist in history. He is certainly celebrated in Belgium. Our first stop in Antwerp was to visit the house/gardens where he used to reside. It was...nice...but nothing spectacular, to be honest. We stopped for lunch at an outdoor market with probably 50 different street food stalls/trailers. Nancy had a breakfast burrito and I had a pita sandwich that was delicious. We cruised through St. Andrew's Church in Antwerp which - again - was nice, but not spectacular, and then headed to the Plantin-Moretus Museum - and intact UNESCO 16th century Renaissance printing house that showcases not one, but two Gutenberg Bibles. I was looking forward to this, but was very disappointed, because it was CLOSED FOR RENOVATIONS! Ugh. So, onto the next stop which was the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal - a gothic cathedral that housed several works by Rubens including 'Descent from the Cross' and 'Elevation of the Cross'. This was a very cool cathedral that was jam-packed with artwork. We strolled through the Grote Markt - another impressive Belgian square - on our way to the final church of the day - St. Paul's Church - was was HUGE...but also CLOSED FOR AN EVENT. Ugh. All in all, Antwerp was cool, but a little disappointing due to the closed sites, even though we had another perfect day of weather.