Weekend Getaway: Antwerp, Belgium

It was Nick’s last weekend visiting me in Europe so we decided to head down to Antwerp in Belgium. After a long, traffic- filled drive from Friesland to just east of the city, we were all settled into our AirBnB and ready to find some famous Belgian patats (fries) and a beer!

The next day, we enjoyed an amazing breakfast at our AirBnB (seriously, if you’re headed to that general area, let me know and I’ll send you their info!) before heading to the city. Nick had heard from some friends that the train station was absolutely stunning, so that was our first stop while touring the city.

Check out these gorgeous fall leaves!

We wandered a bit off the general touristy destinations and spent a decent amount of time roaming through residential neighborhoods. And we stumbled upon this gorgeous church when we stopped from a drink from a cafe.

Somewhere behind the train station, this building stands. I really enjoyed the architecture, so you get to see a photo of it. I mean, it’s not so often you see a home that looks like it’s a mountain of sorts in the middle of a city.

Next up: COFFEE. I did some research and found this charming cafe: The Mad Hatter.

It was really such a charming, chic cafe. And the owners were so friendly and accommodating. Not to mention that they served a reallyy lekker latte.

After our afternoon pick-me-up, we headed to some used book stores. I love bookshops. Especially secondhand ones. It’s just something special. So naturally, I took photos of all the books I found that I wanted to read (no joke, I think I took about 30 photos of books) but didn’t want to lug around while traveling (the downside of loving to read from actual books). But here’s a photo of a record cover I found instead!

Anterwepen is really a lovely city. It’s very much a university city and has so much energy and friendliness bounding through it. And the city center is just gorgeous.

Somehow we stumbled into this quaint restaurant on a side street, and proceeded to have the best meal I have had in Belgium. We shared aardappelkroketten (little rolls of fried mash potatoes- sounds strange but is so good), deer stew, rabbit leg, sautéed veggies, and a baked apple. Yum.

I definitely recommend trying to eat here, though it does fill up very quickly around 20.00, so depending on what time you like to eat, maybe you’d have to make reservations.

Finally, we couldn’t leave Belgium without trying a famous Belgian waffle! They’re so good. I’m obsessed. Maybe even more than I’m obsessed with stroopwafels (a Dutch delicacy of syrupy delight sandwiched between two thin wafels).