比利时 Belgium 之行

I have been so lucky to be able to take the Eurostar from its brand new St Pancras International Station to Belgium on a mini-break. The journey to Brussels Midi (ie, Sud in French-speaking Brussels) was just short of 2 hours. We (my friend and I) dashed off the Eurostar and walked to the main concourse and found the next train to Antwerp was a mere 5 minutes wait. So we quickly got to the right platform and happily boarded the semi-fast train to our destination Antwerp. The train was nearly empty. We enjoyed the smooth ride crossing the countryside heading north.

Having checked into a super-efficient business travellers hotel on the station plaza Agora, we decided to go out and check out the town. Immediately we stepped into the diamond district of roughly 1 square kilometre with jewellery shops mainly manned by Jews. Nowadays there seem to be a lot of Eastern European Jews are running the trade. Antwerp got rich from its trade being a port offering services to Northern Belgium - the Flemish-speaking Flanders. There were the Hanseatic League around the North Seas, hence at the river front (Schelde River) there are some magnificent merchant houses as well as the stone fortification which serves as the Maritime Museum now (See the picture with the castle building ). Of course there is more to Antwerp than just the Diamond. The Diamond trade can trace its history back to the 19th century and was made famous for cutting the Cullinan Diamond into the 4 Stars of Africa for the British Royal Family in the early part of 20th century.

If you want to see to Stars of Africa, you have to come to London. The biggest cut diamond in the world is 530 carats in weight and is set on the gold Royal Sceptre housed in Tower of London - the old British Royal's residence by river Thames. In Antwerp though you can all kinds of superb quality diamond jewellery. In case you need some serious education on diamond you can visit the Diamond Museum at the Station Plaza.

From Antwerp a trip by train takes you to Brugge - another delightful town which is known as the Venice of the North. However with their canal streams and higgledy-piggledy houses you feel more like being in Cambridge. The Town Square is a good spot to stop for lunch or coffee, or simply just watching the world go by. There is a market held at the square every week. Make sure you are there before 12pm otherwise you'll miss all the hustle and bustle of the local market. (See the picture with the gabled houses)

Ghent (Gent in Flemish) is another Medieval town one can explore at leisure. It's usually very busy at Christmas time for the Christmas Fair. There are still small workshops dotted about town. We accidentally found a leather goods shop where the owner still makes some of his own leather goods such as shoes, handbags in his workshop. If you are there try them http://www.leder-reyne.com/ is their website. I got a beautiful patent leather bag there while my friend got a lovely black soft leather shoulder bag.

Antwerp itself demands a minimum of two days to appreciate it fully. The area around the National Museum of Fine Art is very much like Parisian streets and the museum itself has a fine collection of Flemish masters although it is rather poor with its collection of Sir Peter Paul Rubens paintings. For that you have to pay a visit to his own house just off the main shopping street. The house was requisitioned and opened as a Rubens House in 1937. The garden is particularly nice with grapevine twining around a pergola as well as a lot of cottage-types of flowers in blue, white and red. While we were there there was a filming crew filming the house and garden to publicise Antwerp's quality museums and art galleries.