Antwerp Christmas Market

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Yesterday I took the train to Antwerp to go to the Christmas market and to do some shopping. Usually all the shops are closed in Belgium on Sunday, but the two Sundays before Christmas, they open them for shopping. I was in luck because Antwerp is known as the big shopping (especially for diamonds) city in Belgium!

The Antwerp Central Station, also known as the Railway Cathedral, was built in 1905 and looks like a bascilica with high marble columns and an elegant staircase. The platform is 35 meters high and only consists of glass and metalwork. It was the most beautiful station I have ever seen!

I first walked down the main shopping street in Antwerp, the Meir, where there were lots of great shops and they were all in beautiful historic buildings - the Meir is the most important shopping street in the country! The rent stores pay for the historic buildings on the street are so high that almost all of them make a loss rather than a profit. That's why there are only chainstores here: they compensate with profits from their other stores!

The Meir takes you all the way to the Groenplaats, where the Christmas market was being held. I looked around the market for a while and had some lunch there. The Cathedral of Our Lady was in the middle of the Groenplaats and is the highest cathedral in the Low Countries is the tallest building in the city. It is home to several paintings by Baroque painter Rubens, but unfortunately I did not have enough time to go in and see them.

Then I headed towards the Grote Markt, where there was the Town Hall and a skating rink. The Town Hall was built in 1565 and it has more than 40 doors and the statue of Brabo and the giant's hand. Silvius Brabo is a mythical Roman soldier who is said to have killed a giant and later this story was also used to explain the name Antwerp (meaning hand throwing). Brabo once killed a giant, called Druon Antigoon, who asked money from people who wanted to pass the bridge over the river Schelde. When they didn't want to or couldn't pay, he cut off their hand and threw it in the river. Because of this Brabo also removed the hand of the giant, and threw it into the river.

Before heading back to the train station to go back to Brussels, I walked along the River Schelde, which is Antwerp's biggest source of money because it's Europe's second largest harbour (after Rotterdam). Right by the river was the Old Castle Het Steen, which is now the National Maritime Museum. This castle has been there since 1200, when it was a prison with dungeons in which - strangely enough - only people from Antwerp could be locked up, tortured and executed.

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Photos

Antwerp Central Station
Designed by Louis Delacenserie

Antwerp Central Station
Designed by Louis Delacenserie

Shops in Antwerp
The rent stores pay for the historic buildings on the street are so high that almost all of them make a loss rather than a profit. That's why there are only chainstores here: they compensate with profits from their other stores!

Het Steen Castle
Now the National Maritime Museum