I love Antwerp! I enjoyed every single day and every experience. There are so many great things to say about this place. First off, our hosts were unreal. When we arrived they invited us into their home and made us coffee, and we talked for a good hour or more. Getting to learn about the history of their home and about them and their lives was a highlight for me. Sanaz quickly invited us to a music festival with her and her husband and their friends in nearby Ghent. Unfortunately, it was happening the night before our early departure from Antwerp. We wouldn’t likely get back until 3am and we had to be up at 6:30am. It’s been many years since I could pull this off. My spirit animal is feral cat. I need a lot of sleep. So unfortunately we missed out on this.

Sanaz explained that their home was inherited by the grandson of the owners, and it was simply too big for him (5,400 square feet), so he converted the levels into their own individual units and rented them out. They purchased the home from him and occupy the first two levels, and the top level has two separate spaces (both larger than our own condo) that they list on Airbnb. The home was originally a bank. The old safe (160 square feet) is now her wine cellar. When his grandparents had owned it during the war they used the safe to store money and jewelry for Jewish families.

I would have loved to have spent more time with them! They are both from Iran and were able to talk to us about traveling there. They are just exactly the kind of people you want to spend time with. I immediately wished they could be our neighbors back home and I visualized all the fun we would have hanging out, drinking wine (She is a sommelier), sharing stories, and laughing… and they would be a perfect fit with our other friends. Oh, the times we would have… When I finished playing scenes in my head about my new favorite people and came to terms with the fact that I would never convince them to move to Edmonton, we headed out to explore.

Antwerp is full of life and you can explore it all on foot, bike, electric scooters (both the stand-up and seated moped kind), bus, tram, or car. As a pedestrian you are lowest on the totem poll, although everyone is careful and most are courteous. It took us a while to remember to walk on the pedestrian section and yet nobody ran us over. Oddly the mopeds appear to be allowed on the bike path, which seems dangerous considering how much more power they have and their size. From what I’ve read the rules are:

In Belgium 25km/h mopeds are obliged to use the cycle path everywhere, unless specific signs forbid it.

45km/h limited mopeds are obliged to use the cycle path wherever a speed limit higher than 50km/h is in effect. Within zones that have a 50km/h or lower speed limit you can choose whether you use the cycle path or not.

Any moped faster than 45km/h requires a motorcycle license and is not allowed on the cycle path.

Needless to say, when you are strolling leisurely down the sidewalk and a moped zips by you close enough that the driver could slap your ass, it’s a bit startling.  

The Velo bike rentals are everywhere and they are super affordable. You can rent for the day for 4,00€ or by the week for 10,00€. You don’t have the bike the whole time though. The idea is that it is meant for short transport, so you would ride somewhere, check the bike back in and explore, then take out another bike and repeat. It breaks down as:

0-30 min is free                                                     

30-60 min + € 0,50

I love going to the grocery stores in new places and checking out the offerings. One thing I loved is that the grocery stores we were in, Proxy and Albert Heijn, is that they had cloth bags to collect and weigh your produce in. Since I failed to pack a mesh wash bag, this will also work well to wash my bras in. It’s a win-win. No plastic bags filling up the landfills and my undergarments stay will stay intact. Albert Heijn also offers scan as you go so you can bring your own bags and scan each item as you collect it and walk out. So handy! If you are a tourist it is worth noting that some chains like AH do not accept credit cards. Cash or debit only.

We explored the Middelheim Museum one afternoon. It is an open-air museum with sculptures and art installations. The grounds are beautiful and you could easily spend the entire day wandering around. It was around this area that we discovered the musical garbage bin (check out our YouTube video). This led to me wanting to open every trash bin I passed, only to be disappointed. Why was there only one musical bin?! After doing some searching I found out a bit more. The campaign is called Trash Tunes.

In order to get people’s attention and to open their eyes to denote the issue of urban litter we made singing bins, which we called the Trash Tunes. The idea all started with the form of the bins. When you look at the bins in the City of Antwerp you can identify the form of a jukebox. That’s why we had the idea to turn the trash bins into real jukeboxes and to motivate people to throw their trash in the paper baskets/bins by giving them something in return, namely a part of a well-known song. We made deals with different labels. Every time someone throws something in the bin, they got thanked by the bin singing “give it to me, Baby”, “you’re simply the best” or “drop it like it’s hot”. We succeeded in making something ordinary, throwing away trash, into an extraordinary experience.

In total, 50 jukebox were placed all over the city. Not only did people notice the bins more in the streets, but near the musical bins the urban litter dropped by 65%.

Antwerp also has amazing food. We were repeat offenders at a place called Mission Masala. Fabulous Indian food! However, like Bruges, Antwerp is not cheap. This place was very reasonably priced and sharing 4 dishes (not huge portions either), like a curry, tandoori chicken, a samosa, an onion bhaji  and having one drink each would cost around 50 Euros, which is 74.00 Canadian dollars. We are looking forward to getting to places where we don’t have to be so mindful of where and what we are eating.

I almost forgot! Mosquitoes. They were really bad in the evening so we had to keep the windows closed. Screens are not a thing here, and the first night we got eaten alive. I have always been a victim. They just love my fairy blood. I’m their Sookie Stackhouse. On the upside, we discovered these bands with essential oils that are supposed to work really well. We have not tried them out yet but if they work as well as the reviews say, I will become their brand ambassador. I’ll keep you posted.

15 days in…

Next stop Hameln, Germany.