Saturday at Antwerp

Yesterday we decided to make a short drive to Antwerp and spent the whole day there. Antwerp is a port city in Belgium which takes one and half hour ride from home to reach the city centre. It is famous for being one of the world centre for diamond trading industry.

We have only been to Antwerp once but have never venture beyond the Central Station. So we decided to drive and park right at the heart of the city, known as the Grote Markt. We were quite surprised to see a lot of Dutch cars were also heading the same way - reminiscene of Bruneian heading to Miri or KK!.

The city itself is quite nice and pleasant to spend a day out. This time around we managed to get all the kids to join us. Fiz as usual printed her own map and made a bit of research in the internet. Then off she went on her own exploring the city only to see us 3 hours later. For our parts we were just taking our time and enjoy walking around and exploring the city. One thing that is quite visible in the city is the high number of muslims seen in the crowd.

Definitely the most beautiful place worth visiting is a shopping centre called Stadsfeestzaal. The Stadsfeestzaal is a large hall originally built at the beginning of the 20th century as a permanent site for official festivities. After it was destroyed by fire in 2000, the glass-vaulted hall was renovated and reopened recently in 2007 as a modern shopping center. The venue was restored in all its splendour. Inside it is heavily decorated in gold, marble staircase, mosaic floor, gilded facades and glass-domed vault.

A real eye-catcher in the main hall is the champagne-shaped Laurent Perrier bar. We only sat down at the coffee bar on the floor, a great way to enjoy the place.