August 28th Antwerp

Woke to another beautiful day.  Hot again.  In the thirties with humidity.  We spent the day just getting familiar with our surroundings.  It’s a beautiful, old, very walkable city.  At least Old Town is.  But we have been warned by Christina (a lovely bartender originally from Budapest) DO NOT TAKE SHORTCUTS!  There is no such thing as a grid in this city.  Also everyone that hears that we have a car and drove here is amazed.  They think we are nuts! Nobody drives in the city.  I have to agree with them.  The next time we get into the car will be to drive to Baden Baden in Germany.  I wonder if people drive there?
So we just wandered yesterday and took lots of pictures.  There were a lot fewer people than there were in Amsterdam and Gothenburg and Edinburgh.  At least until we found the pedestrian only shopping district.  Then it was just like those three cities. But we were looking for the train station and had to go through there to get there. Once we found the train station we were amazed at how beautiful it was.  Our intention was to take the train to Ghent today (August 29th).  We have since changed our minds and will go tomorrow instead. Today we are just going to catch our breath and maybe do laundry.  Might even cook our own dinner! I mentioned Christina earlier but forgot to mention her “boss” Syd.  Syd is a chow and he’s just beautiful.  We may have to pay them another visit.  Our final stop last night was at Quinten Matsis. Which is the oldest pub in Antwerp. A warm, lovely old building.  We wish we had places like this at home.  We just seem to tear things down and replace them with metal, glass and concrete.