Today we decided to visit Antwerp so about 9am we set off for the station and the train to Antwerp, it takes about 50 minutes by train, I have to say I love the train system here if you are travelling with someone you can buy what is know as a Duo ticket which means that one person travels for free, makes it all very economical which is a good thing as everything else is quite expensive. We have a walk that starts at the railway station and takes you into the Diamond Quarter, Antwerp handles 80 per cent of the worlds entire rough diamond trade, unfortunately they obviously don’t handle them on a Saturday as most of the shops were closed, but some were open and had a few nice pieces of jewellery, from here we walked towards Meir which is a wide pedestrianised street which is packed with shops, doing quite a trade, about half way up and just a little way from the main shopping area is The Rubén’s House, this was the home of Peter Paul Rubéns the artist and his first wife Isabella, he brought the house and a piece of land and in the years that followed had the building enlarged to his own design, to the left was his living quarters where there is a display of period furniture and behind this is the art gallery where Rubén’s exhibited both his own and other artists work as well as the space where he entertained his friends and wealthy patrons, to the right lies the main studio, a spacious salon where he worked and displayed his paintings. It was nice to walk round and they had an audio guide which gave just enough information but without going on too long! Once we left there we continued the walk towards the Grote Market. Antwerp was one of the leading trading cities of norther Europe and the narrow streets and wonderful buildings around the cathedral and square are visible signs of this success, the Grote market contains the Town hall and the largest Gothic cathedral in Belgium, it is said that the building occupies 2.5 acres! It was begun in 1352 and took almost two centuries to complete. We decided to stop and have something to eat overlooking the square which was really nice, then it was time to continue our tour of the town. We walked towards the river and docks which definitely isn’t a tourist area, then came back into the medieval area and eventually found the Museum Plantin Moretus. Christophe Plantin, a bookbinder and leather crafter from France arrived in Antwerp in the middle of the sixteenth century just as the city was experiencing its golden age. In 1555 he published his first book and soon he had a number of customers, I hadn’t realised that historically you purchased a book then had to pay for it to be bound separately, or not if you didn’t want to bother and just wanted the book in loose leaf, Christophe was both a printer and binder and therefore had a steady stream of customers, in less than 20 years Plantins publishing house was one of the top of Europe’s industrial leaders, he was the founding father of nine generations of printers in Antwerp. He had a number of daughters who he educated and taught to become proof readers, a necessary skill in those days the house was massive and the displays were fascinating, both the printing presses and the book binding equipment was still in situ, he was responsible for a number of different fonts being created and was responsible for publishing journals, medical documents and even the Guttenberg bible. This was another fascinating museum and really large so once we had finished looking round this it was time for another rest and something to drink. We decided to head back to the square where we had a couple of drinks then set off for the station to head back to Brussels for a relax before our final day tomorrow.
