Antwerp
 

Nice short film about Antwerp:
http://monocle.com/film/edits/antwerp-a-monocle-guide/

Thank you..I love Antwerp!!

Thank you..I love Antwerp!!

Antwerpen is a great city.
The station is superb, the Zoo is quite nice, the city is beautiful.

Film forgot to mention the 'jenever' alcohol that is present everywhere in cafés.

And they mixed some great new buildings with some taste.

There's a nice atmosphere now, with the Christmas market. Very festive.

The Zaha Hadid building can be seen from the Antwerp ring road, as it is being build. Looks like a UFO landed on top of the old building.

Antwerp is one of Europe's most interesting and delicious small cities. Lively too. The blend of modern and antique in not just evident in the architecture, but also in fashion, modern art, the restaurants and drink -- and it is all done in a way that is not only distinctive and unique, not aping other people's trends, but with its own integrity and development. Antwerp comes across as brainy as well as subtly sensual. It's a great place to be a hedonist but also think.

I've often thought I'd have a great time spending a week in Antwerp and a week in Lisbon, back to back, two fascinating port cities that played in key role in the globalisation that we live in today, with all its challenges and ongoing brutalities. (Genova, Trieste, Gdansk are other places I'd include in that itinerary if I had more time, maybe Valenica too.) The food and drink in these places are its own draw.

One other small note: my experience of the Antwerp is that jenever is best in the dedicated jenever bars, which offer so many different and unusual kinds, much of it artisinal.

I would not call Antwerp a small city - a large and great city - really enjoyed my many stays in Antwerp on business - its joys extend beyond the city center.

Thanks for posting tulips!

We loved the houses in the Wijk Zurenborg district.

Stu Dudley

Thanks. I'm also a fan of Antwerp--we've been twice and would happily return.

Antwerp's Centraal station is one of the world grand train sheds - called the cathedral by locals I think and here is one of my favorite videos of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EYAUazLI9k