belgium while it lasts
I have to decide tonight so I can book a hotel room. Ghent or Antwerp? Anyone? Remember, I’ve got a kid, so I’m not going to be doing much, you know, clubbing or anything really at night other than drinking Belgian supermarket wine in my room (which is very exotic compared with the Tesco wine in my living room, right now and every night). Note, I’ve been to Bruges before, so that’s why it’s not on the list….
Ghent is as of now in the lead…
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I know it’s a minority stance but I am very fond of Antwerp. You know that book of mine you own? There’s an Antwerp poem if you check the TOC. I find the gray North Sea sky-creep over that river to be lovely. I fear the streetcar has been modernized, though. And I’ve never been to Ghent.
jane
July 15, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Hmmm…. My wife just said to me, “Wait, who said Bruges isn’t on the table.”
Also, added complexity, we’re going to be visiting a friend in Liège, right near Deutschland, so now I’m wondering if we should head to Cologne for our xtra day and a half so I can practice my jerrytalk. I had thought said friend was in Leuven. Which may have been wishful thinking, as it’s the home of the Stella people, and whatever David Brooks says it’s a fine enough beer and a veritable bar talking point harnessible wherever eurobeers are sold to have visited, alas. But I’m thinking North Sea sky creep sounds like a decent selling point. We’ll have to see how it all turns out.
PS. I was sort of thinking of you when I posted this, after the valuable Den Haag info last summer.
PPS. I owe you a message. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.
CR
July 15, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Not been to Antwerp, but Ghent is interesting – an excellent example of that neglected architectural genre, First International Jugendstil (‘Ons Huis’, the Socialist Union building on the central square, will get you an address if you like), Van de Velde’s University Tower also very cool. Design museum also vaguely diverting. A good place for wandering in, and is also very much a living city, unlike Bruges; which is of course mainly a Victorian facsimile of a renaissance town, but as they go it’s pretty good – but not in July. Full of Brits pissed up on Kwak.
Owen
July 15, 2008 at 11:51 pm