Day 33: Antwerp to Roosendaal

September 11, 2024

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"We carried our stuff down the twisting staircase". I was starting off today's blog with these words, when I realized I had written the same thing yesterday. The reason is, of course, that the situations were similar, except that I think the latest staircase, at the Hotel Mezonvin, was more deadly. It achieved this with more steepness and sharper curves, but also a devilish trick, so common in Europe: The lights are on a timer, and if you are old and slow, or carrying heavy luggage, tough on you 'cause in 20 seconds you will be doing it in the dark!

Not to prolong this curmudgeonly angle too long, I was interested once we were in the alley to see the beer gardens almost under our window, where people had been loudly partying late into last night. It was dark and raining, so I had wondered how they kept it up. Canopies and lights, I guess. What in heaven's name did these loud talkers and laughers find so funny, for so long? We run into this in Germany a lot, and try to ask for a room not above the beer garden. Dodie pointed out that our narrow building had only one room per floor, so no hope of being squirreled quietly in the back!

Our hotel shared the lane not only with beer gardens but also the cathedral. Here is the tower, in the morning light.

Ans walking around the front, it looks like this.

This sculpture is in the square in front of the cathedral. To me it conjures the Neverending Story, but in fact the story is older.

"THE NOVELLA, A DOG OF FLANDERS was written by Ouida (pseudonym of English author Marie Louise de la Ramée) in 1872. It centered around the lives of Nello, a young orphan boy aspiring to be a painter, and his dog Patrasche.

The story is not very famous in the region despite it being set in Antwerp, but was a big hit in Japan, Korea, and the Philippines. This popularity derived from an anime television series created during the 1970s that showcased the adventures of the boy and his dog.

The climactic scene of A Dog of Flanders follows a desperate Nello, who after being wrongly accused of causing a fire in his village, goes to the cathedral in Antwerp to see his idol Rubens’s “The Elevation of the Cross” and “The Descent of the Cross.” However, he was out of money and unable to see the artwork. On Christmas Eve, Nello and his dog stayed at the cathedral when they found the doors open. The next morning, the boy and his dog are discovered frozen to death under his favorite artist’s painting.

This tragic ending inspired more than a few fans to visit Antwerp, however, there was nothing dedicated to the story in the country as most were unaware of its international popularity.

During the 1980s, Antwerp finally introduced a small statue of a boy and his dog to Hoboken, a suburb of Antwerp where the novella is believed to be set. Toyota also donated a commemorative plaque that was placed in front of the Cathedral of Our Lady. The plaque was later replaced by a marble statue made by Batist Vermeulen, depicting Nello’s last moments with Patrasche, covered by a cobblestone blanket, forever together." (Atlasobscura.com)

After looking at the front of the not yet open Cathedral of Our lady, we set off to find an Albert Heijn supermarket. We passed through streets liking those in the two photos below, and fetched up opposite the Groenplaats, where I of course got stashed outside.

From in front of Albert Heijn I had a view at another angle at the cathedral, through some trolley wires.

I could also focus a bit more on the cathedral tower.

Dodie came out with a lot of great stuff. Part of this was a package of banana pancakes. Amazingly for something not made fresh, they were tender and with good texture and flavor. Dodie also had orange juice made fresh from that automated juicer machine. So good.

We ate our pancakes and juice in front of the store, and then pushed on into the Groenplaats. Here we had a close up of an 1843 statue of the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens. Those two Rubens paintings mentioned above, Descent from the Cross, and Elevation of the Cross can still be found in the cathedral.

We travelled a couple of streets more, like the one below, to arrive at the Grote Markt (Great Square).

The Grote Markt is dominated by city hall.

In front of city hall is a statue depicting a story about Silvius Brabo, a local mythical hero. The story holds that a giant was controlling access to the city, demanding a high toll, and cutting off the hands of those who failed to pay. Brabo fought the giant, cut off his hand, and threw it in the river.

I am not sure how this creature got into the story.

Looking now around the rest of the square, we see the rows of guild houses and houses of the wealthy.

That was about it for our Antwerp, so we heading for the exits. That passed the Steen Castle, which was constructed in the 13th century. The purpose was to control access to the Scheldt river. It is now the oldest surviving building in Antwerp.

In front of the castle is a statue of Lange Wapper, a giant said to have terrorized medieval Antwerp. (See the little people looking up at him?)

Very shortly after leaving the Grote Markt, and what proved to be Antwerp's fairly small medieval core, the city showed us more of its true nature. The Port of Antwerp is Europe's second largest shipping port by traffic, handling 26% of Europe's container shipping. We quickly got entangled in roads clogged with both construction and many big transport trucks.

A bit of decoration in the industrial section.

This structure puzzled me. Was it a giant solar panel?

Another view. This is actually the Port Authority building, and there are offices in that thing.

Dodie takes on the challenge of getting out of here.

Dodie succeeded in getting us out of the industrial tangle. Now we entered the endless suburban tangle.

I thought the first one would be the only thatch around, but no, here is another one.

That was about it for thatch. The study brick buildings shown are very typical of this area.

It was suburbs like this for a long time.

This was a day with on and off rain, often torrential, that we spent in full rain gear. The temperature was also up and down, starting around 11 and riding to near 18, before plummeting again to 12 in rain. We even had quite hard hail, and spent certain bits of time hiding under trees. Something that suffered from both the rain and the forest was our brakes, which began to make horrible scraping noises. During a time when the rain had let up, I passed a wet wipe around my rim, and came up with thick deposits of black goo. Dodie had also been complaining about her front brake in particular, and I was horrified on checking it to see that because of a loose bolt, the right side pad was basically waving in the wind. That was bad enough, but had that bolt fallen out - game over! I put new pads on Dodie's front brake at a table by a tourist info for a place called Kalmthout. They had a memorial there for two Britains killed locally by V bombs, and also a monument of an anti-aircraft gun used to shoot down V-1's directed at Antwerp. (Did not know you could shoot down a V-1 with 1944 tracking technology.)

Eventually, we crossed the border into Netherlands. Things did not change immediately or dramatically for this, but soon it was noticeable. We had entered a sort of Grampies' paradise, with super neat fields and houses and gardens. There were model looking farm animals, smooth clean bike ways, and sturdy small, and so clean, brick houses, usually with some sort of pottery in the window.

At first we thought this was poppies in a field of leeks - but no, it's a huge field of gladiolus.

We had been blasted by rain on and off, and were keeping a close eye on the offending clouds.

Here they are, dumping on somebody else just now.

We saw a few draft horses like this - probably Ardennais.

On the final run in to Roosendaal, we passed some wetlands and wet fields, featuring a lot of birds.

Canada Goose and 24221 Dutch Common Gull

24222 Greater White Fronted Goose (note white ring at base of bill)

Graylag Goose (lacks white ring at base of bill)

We arrived in Roosendaal, our stop for the night, to find another fun faire in action - this one bigger than the last (in Oudenaarde).

They had a lot of big stuffed prizes, some bigger than this.

We dropped our stuff at the hotel, dried off a bit, and came back out. We had spotted some fries and other stuff worth checking out.

The boy at the fries stand spoke good English and was fun to talk to.

He is pointing out that another fried food (basically, donuts) stand, sharing an owner with his, is just down the way.

We discussed whether Dutch fries we the same as Belgian ones. No, said the boy. The Dutch ones are made with superior Dutch potatoes, and the mayonnaise here is sweeter.

We got the fries, a big dollup of mayo (on the side!), and a sausage with onions and ...mayo.

Both the potato fries stand and the donuts had large effective frying setups.

Another stand had these eels. I was foolish enough to ask if you ate them like sticks. No, I learned that you peel them first, and to my dismay the man gave me a sample.

€27.50 buys about five of these, about 1/2 kilo.

Eel? It was smoky, greasy, and a bit chewy.

We retired to our room with our donut treasures, and were glad of the shelter as the skies opened again, this time with thunder and lightening to go with the downpour. We are hoping for better weather tomorrow, but it looks like it could be tough again. Oh well, so are we!

Today's ride: 57 km (35 miles)
Total: 1,484 km (922 miles)

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Karen PoretLooks like us travelers in EU are all experiencing the wet stuff. 😟
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3 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Karen PoretYou can't control the weather, more's the pity.
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3 months ago