Friday
For my second (and most likely last) overnight trip into Belgium, I traveled to Antwerp. Antwerp was only a short 35 min train ride away from my first farm (after driving 30 min to Lokeren station in Belgium) and was somewhat on the way to my next farm.
Antwerp is the 2nd largest city in Belgium and well known for its port, fashion scene, and diamonds (none of which I partook in). Of course, I did make sure to try the four classic Belgian foods again (same ones I had in Ghent) for research purposes.
I arrived in Antwerp on Friday night, and had time to check into my hostel and then head downtown for a quick dinner. The hostel (YUST Antwerp) was the fanciest one I’ve stayed at, feeling more like a trendy hotel. That being said, definitely not the best one I’ve ever been to, since the bunk beds got extremely warm at night (it had privacy curtains which was nice, but prevented good airflow). I went to a fish and chips place in the historic center for dinner; I can confidently say it was one of the fish and chips I’ve had in my life. The Belgian pilsner was alright (the first but definitely not the last beer I had in Antwerp).
I walked around the historic city center a little bit, but went back to the hostel early to get some work done, watch some episodes of the 3 Body Problem (it got good), and go to bed relatively early so I could get going the next morning.
Saturday Morning
In the morning, I headed back downtown to make my timed entry into the Chocolate Nation museum. I took the tram for all of my non-walking journeys (except 1) and overall it was pretty good. I quickly realized that most of the trams ran 2-3 minutes late, which was fine once I figured that out. The tram from right outside my hostel to the center of town only took 15 min.
Quick random note about the center of town: I was surprised to see so many Hassidic Jews. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised given the large diamond business.
Once I got to Antwerp Central station, I got a waffle, but a Liège style waffle instead of the Brussels kind I had in Ghent (crazy that I fit 4 Belgian cities in 1 sentence). This one was much better (and much cheaper) 10/10. I could have gotten many toppings on my waffle (including chocolate of course), but decided against it since I saw everyone else ordering theirs plain, and because I was walking over to Chocolate Nation.
Chocolate Nation got recommended to me via one of the podcasts I was listening to while working on the farm. This was a different travel podcast than the one I listened to in Ghent (which proved to have good recommendations). Let’s just say this podcast’s recommendation was not so good. The couple on the podcast struck me as quite naive: the husband had never heard of Antwerp and knew astonishingly little about it before visiting, which is not great for people I’d be taking recommendations from. That being said, they had visited Antwerp, and I had not (at the time of me listening), so I followed their recommendation to go to Chocolate Nation. Recommendation may be an understatement though, as the husband called it the top thing to do if you could only do one thing in Antwerp.
Maybe his high praise left so much space for the real experience to fall below my expectations, or maybe the experience really just wasn’t that great. Probably both. The museum is sort of like a poor man’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, except in this version you’re not led by Gene Wilder or Timothée Chalamet, but by a crappy audio guide you have to hold to your ear. The audio guides didn’t work super well, as in some rooms they were supposed to start automatically, but didn’t. In other rooms, there were wall sensors you could point them at to start the recording, but I was astonished at how many little kids (and their parents) were struggling to point the audio guide correctly to get it working. I tried to help a little kid learn how to do it, but once I helped him once he seemed to forget what I showed him on the next guide (he was like 10, not 5). Ok, enough of me ranting about the audioguides, let’s change the subject. I’ll rant about the exhibits. Ok, I won’t rant too much, I’ll just constructively criticize.
Each room was supposed to take you through a step in the chocolate making process. One room had a large cacao tree, another had shipping containers, another had large vats to heat chocolate in, etc etc. I had two main issues with this. First, all of the rooms we saw contained toy-like recreations; we didn’t get to walk through any rooms where actual chocolate was made, much less ones with real chocolate making equipment. Secondly, the tour greatly oversimplified the chocolate making process. Especially the harvesting of cacao seeds, since I’d probably guess Belgium’s brutal colonization of the Congo (now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo) has something to do with how Belgium had access to so much cacao. There is little mention of the entire African continent until later in the museum (in a small, easy missable corner).
The supposed pièce de résistance (according to our naive podcasters) of the museum was the unlimited chocolate fountains at the end of the tour. They made it sound like there would be chocolate samples throughout the tour (which there were not), so I was really hoping some chocolate at the end would redeem the other misses of the tour. Did it? You guessed it: not really. There actually were unlimited chocolate “fountains,” but I found the whole process a bit unsanitary (with everyone walking around with the same spoon to collect the chocolate). While it was cool to taste so many different kinds of chocolate (the ruby chocolate was my favorite), they did start to taste the same after chocolate number 6 (I think there were somewhere around 15 total).
So yeah, you can probably tell by now that if I hosted a podcast about Antwerp, Chocolate Nation would not be my top recommendation. What would be? Well…
Saturday Afternoon
After the underwhelming chocolate experience. I had some time to kill before my next scheduled activity. I spent some time strolling through the city, where I walked through a park (it was average) and stumbled into a farmers market type situation (it was cooler).
Zaterdagmarkt, as google maps informed me it is called, is a cross between an upscale farmer’s market, a less upscale flea market, and a bar. One could buy Belgian flag-laden tchotchkes, sample local salami and cheese, and then order oysters and champagne at a bar. Of course one could, but I did not. All of this was just me killing time before lunch; where I headed to a Belgian chain of frites restaurants that looked good in Ghent, but I didn’t go to then. Frites Atelier (or Fries Workshop according to google translate) was good, but nothing too special. I ordered fries with flemish stew on top (two things that are traditional on their own, but unique together). The fries were decent, but nothing to write home about.
My next activity was a walking tour of the city, led by Legends tours: the same company I used and enjoyed in Ghent. The guide (Luc B) was good, but wasn’t as enthusiastic as Kenny from Ghent. The demographics of the group included a lot more older people. My one fun fact I took away from the tour was about the placement of a statue outside city hall. The figure shown is seen throwing a hand into a river, but oddly the direction of the toss does not line up with the actual direction of the river relative to the statue. The explanation? The artist cared more about pointing the naked ass of the statue towards the window of the mayor’s office than the accuracy of the throw’s direction. Nice move.
I’ll include a dump of the rest of the photos I took below:
Saturday Evening
After the tour, I headed back to the hostel to shower and rest before I walked over to my brewery tour next to my hostel.
The De Koninck Brewery tour was better than the chocolate tour for one main reason. Yep you guessed it: it’s because they gave us beer. We got one to start the tour, and one halfway through. A bolleke and triple d’anvers. I liked the triple d’anvers better (the bolleke is more well known). They were both good, but not great. Similar to the chocolate tour, I walked with a group between rooms where we watched videos in each one (worked better than audio guides). My main complaint was that we never saw actual brewing equipment until the very end (it was all plastic cutouts and art, very similar to Chocolate Nation). Cool, but not what I wanted for a brewery tour. The catwalk at the end (only photo I took) was underwhelming since there were no signs or explanations of what each of the vats in front of us were.
After the beer tour, I headed back downtown for dinner. I went to an Italian restaurant – I had walked by it several times and smelled so good I thought I had to try it. The verdict: just ok, the google reviews calling it a tourist trap were probably right. Not a scam by any means, but the food smelled much better than it tasted (which was like a normal pizza).
Afterwards, I headed to a beer bar (bier central) on my way back to the hotel, since I wanted to make sure I had actual good Belgian beer before I headed back to the Netherlands. Thankfully, that was not hard to do. The menu, called the beer encyclopedia, featured over 300 Belgian beers, each with a good sized description. The two I tried were both good. First, I had a Chimay Rouge: a red trappist beer. Then I had a St. Hubertus Blond: a blonde abbey beer (which basically means it wants to be a trappist beer but doesn’t have the right qualifications [ie monks] to be one). Both were quite good, but the Chimay Rouge was better. Not better than the Westmalle Tripel, but still quite good.
I also want to give credit to the depth the beer encyclopedia goes into. It gave listings of cheese pairings for some beers (apparently cheese pairs better with beer than with wine since wine’s tannins can clash with the fat of cheese). It also gave instructions for how to taste beer, how to choose the right glass, how to pair beer with food, and much more. I could have bought I copy for 10 euros, but didn’t want to carry around the 100+ page book for the better part of the next month and change.
Sunday Morning
The next day, I headed to the MAS museum before taking off to my next farm (don’t worry, the reveal is coming, just keep reading). The MAS museum ended up being a cool combination of a history, culture and science museum relating to all things Antwerp (and the super cool architecture of the building doesn’t hurt either)
Unlike my previous two experiences, let me tell you all of the reasons I enjoyed the MAS museum. Firstly, the architecture of the museum wasn’t only beautiful to look at, but it also made it easy to enjoy what was inside the museum. Let me explain. In most museums, you walk around in circles trying to make sure you see everything (or at least I do), and invariably end up walking through some areas twice and missing some exhibits entirely. The MAS museum essentially has 8 exhibits all stacked up on top of each other. Every floor has the same layout (just rotated 90 degrees), so when you get to a new floor, you know exactly how to navigate it. Since each exhibit was on its own floor, you can’t miss any of the exhibits (since you need to take the escalator to floor 2 before visiting floor 3, etc etc).
Another feature of the museum I liked, but didn’t take part in since I was short on time, was an opportunity to give feedback or reflect on every exhibit at the end. For the exhibit about Antwerp’s port history, it asked you to build a mini cardboard shipping crate and write down something you would want to ship in it (more for kids). On the exhibit about WWII in Antwerp, it asked you to reflect on what you learned and what you hope for the future after seeing the destruction caused by the war.
Every exhibit I visited (other ones featured topics ranging from meanings of home to the food systems of Antwerp) was super interesting and visually pleasing (good mix of historical objects and interactive displays – the V1 rocket and corresponding interactive map of bombings was insightful).
Here’s some views of the city from the rooftop deck:
Sunday Afternoon
Unfortunately, enjoying the museum made me tight on time (a first for me) for my departure to my next farm. I have never been late for a plane, a train, or a bus in my life, and intended on keeping it that way. I had booked a FlixBus from Antwerp to Utrecht, where I would take a train and another bus to my farm. Before I boarded the FlixBus though, I had to feed myself lunch, get all the way across the city to my hostel to pick up my bags, and get back to the city center to board the bus.
In hind sight, it would have been a bit easier to bring my bags to the luggage storage in at Antwerp Central, but I had decided against it as it would cost a bit more, and I thought I would have plenty of time (wrong on both fronts).
I had just over an hour to accomplish my 3 tasks, which didn’t look like enough time. I first walked over to a restaurant called Boker Tov to get lunch. I got a chicken schnitzel wrap to go, which the chef of course took his sweet old time to make, even though it was an open air kitchen right in front of me, and I was the only customer there. It ended up being really good, but not worth the 18 euros it costed. I didn’t eat it at the restaurant though, as I had a bus to catch.
Looking at the tram schedules, I realized taking a tram back to the hostel wouldn’t align well enough with the tram schedule from the hostel back to downtown for me to make my bus. So I did the unthinkable: I ordered an Uber “gasp.” Sure enough, this ended up being the wrong move, as we arrived 10 minutes later than expected due to traffic. Side note: all of the city core of Antwerp is a low emission-zone, which seemed to partly make it harder for cars to navigate between trams and bikes (which is normally a great thing, but sucked for me then). Once to the hostel, I rushed in, grabbed my bags, and rushed back out to the tram station. Of course, the tram to downtown had just left, and the next one wouldn’t come for 10 minutes. Tick…tick. I was losing time to make my bus. The bus left at 1:20, but missing the tram meant I was now expected to arrive at 1:15. That would probably be fine, but the bus begins boarding 15 minutes before departure, and likely wouldn’t wait for one last person if everyone was boarded at 1:10 (a theoretically possible scenario). I got on my tram, and headed downtown.
I was going to get off at Diamant station next to Antwerp Central, but google maps said take the tram one more stop to Opera, since it was closer to the bus station. I decided to trust google maps with this one, as I wasn’t trying to run further with my 40lbs of added weight (the backpacks, not the beer silly). As the tram left the underground Diamant station and coasted towards Opera, it suddenly came careening to a halt. Tick…tick…tick. I really started to get nervous, I had little room left for delays. After 2 excruciating minutes, the train started moving again and pulled into Opera. I ran through the exit, racing past people on the 3 sets of stairs and escalators, and bolted the 2 blocks to the bus station.
As I got close to the station, I saw a Flixbus pulling away. I ran faster. Thankfully it pulled up to the stop. It had just arrived, not left. I breathed a sigh of relief. The driver announced it was headed for Amsterdam. This was not an issue, I knew Utrecht was a stop along the way. When I got closer to the bus, throngs of people were trying to board. There was no way all of these people would fit on this one bus. Which got me confused. I thought Flixbus wouldn’t overbook a bus. But that was only what I thought. As I got closer to the bus, I realized the number of the bus route didn’t match my ticket: this was not my bus.
I became concerned again that I had actually missed my bus. The throngs of confused people (much more so than me at least) around me convinced me otherwise. After some research on my phone, I was able to track the bus and realized it was delayed.
After all that hustle, including scarfing down a schnitzel wrap at a bus stop, paying $20 for an Uber, and running with my backpacks, I had arrived early for my train. And not just a little early, but a lot: 25 min before the bus arrived.
While I made it onto the bus successfully, my journey was far from over. I still had to make connections in Utrecht and then Tiel. Thankfully these connections were not booked in advance, if I missed one train or bus I could always wait for the next one (either 30 min later for a train or 1 hr later for a bus), but I was determined to make the optimal connections to minimize my layover times. As the Flixbus got closer to Utrecht, I realized we were going to get in only a few minutes before my optimal train would arrive at and then leave the station. Once the bus stopped, I grabbed my smaller backpack, made my way to the front of the line to grab my larger backpack from under the bus, and then sprinted to the station (while ordering a ticket on my phone). I saw that my train was leaving from platform 21 (Utrecht is the largest train station in the country, owing to its central location), and feared I’d have to run past 20 other platforms first. Once I scanned my ticket and got through the fare gates, I was relieved to see I had entered the station from the back, and platform 21 was the last one. I ran down the stairs, and sure enough, the train was literally pulling up as I walked down. Phew.
Again, the journey was not yet complete. Now that I had decided to take a train to Tiel, I was locked in to riding a bus from the station to a stop in walking distance of the farm. This bus only left once every hour, so it would really suck to just miss it. As we neared Tiel, the train seemed to remember the tram’s behavior in Antwerp, and slowed down considerably well before we reached the stop. Of course it hadn’t done this for previous stations. By then, we were reaching the scheduled departure time for my next bus. Once at Tiel, I ran the short distance from the platform to the bus stop, knowing the scheduled departure time had come and gone. There was another person standing at my stop, so I had some hope it hadn’t come yet. Sure enough, I checked google maps and the bus was running 2 minutes late. Those 2 minutes saved me an entire hour of waiting at a rural train station.
After the easy 20 min bus ride, I got off the bus and walked another 25 min to my next farm: Fruitweelde. I’ll add a pin on the map viewable at the bottom of my site so you can see where this is.
Next post will be about my first days on Fruitweelde. Spoiler alert, I’m already getting eaten by mosquitoes as I write this.
Leave a Reply