Antwerp

Antwerp  is a city in Belgium and the capital of Antwerp province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, it is the most populous city proper in Belgium, and with a metropolitan population of around 1,200,000 people, it is the second-largest metropolitan region after Brussels.

Thought I would take a break from the Iceland posts and give everyone reading this a taste of some of the other great travels I have had.

Sadly when I visited Antwerp it was night and I was not able to get near as many pictures as I would have liked. I also was not able to see everything I quite wanted to see, so at some point I will have to plan a return trip to fix these issues.

What I was able to see while I was there was fantastic. In the photos you will see how the Antwerp City Hall with Brabo fountain in front of it, and is part of the great market square of Antwerp where the are a ton of restaurants, cafes, and beautiful guildhalls.

Het Steen is the medieval fortress that is in the old city center of Antwerp. As you can tell due to the lowlight conditions I was not able to get as nice of a picture as I would have liked but I wanted to share with you this amazing fortress that has been since the early 13th century, though it has gone through several rebuilding and renovations along that time. It helped to control access to the Scheldt river that it is on the banks of.

The final pictures is of the Cathedral of Our Lady and is a Roman Catholic Cathedral in Antwerp. This angelic building was begun in 1352, but was not completed until nearly 170 years later. This completion was not actually the full construction of the original plan as the church was suppose to have 2 towers of equal height but the second tower was topped at just half of its original planned height. I was unable to get inside of the church due to it being the evening hours, but the exterior architecture was absolutely exquisite.

I do hope everyone gets a chance to get to see this beautiful city.