To Antwerpen, in the rain.

Let’s go to Belgium for lunch.

How often do you get to say that?

We got up this morning and were simply too stuffed to do any more sanding, scraping and painting, so we went to Belgium for lunch.

The square in the Grote Markt, Antwerpen. 

Antwerpen to be precise. To the Grote Markt which surrounds the 1352 gothic cathedral and contains the 16th century Stadhuis (town hall) and a pretty impressive central square surrounded by restaurants and sidewalk cafes.

Unfortunately, as it does often in this country, it rained, which put a damper on the sidewalk cafes, but the restaurants were still doing a roaring trade.

We dined in one facing the statue and fountain of the Roman soldier Silvius Brabo throwing the hand of a giant into the nearby river Scheldt. Whatever blows your hair back!

The procession of people outside in the square was bizarre and hilarious. 

There was a human train of old people following their guide who was holding up a sign with number 17 written on it while giving a non stop commentary in four different languages, and the Germans in funny helmets who looked like they had just been climbing the Matterhorn but were actually part of a guided tour on segway  wierdo electric mono cycles.

The tomato soup followed by steak and chips for 9.50 Euro each was just perfect and sitting looking out on this ancient town square watching the tourists take endless photos of themselves in slightly different geographical locations made us think about being tourists.

They are people with no status in life, other than to be milked of as much money as possible with the minimum of commitment possible.

We were tourists today and we did not really enjoy that feeling.

Back in Holland, we are an accepted part of a community. People know us by name, they greet us with genuine smiles and want to know how our progress is. We share a common interest and a have developed a bond that exists between friends. We share coffee and food with people with no thought of a bill at the end.

Tourists just pass through a place  contributing nothing but their foreign currency buying the overpriced trinkets. And yes we bough some of those overpriced trinkets too. It’s hard not to when you are a tourist.

Antwerpen has a very pretty town centre and it was a lovely place to be, even in the rain, but we decided not to check into a hotel for the night and instead drove back over the fields of Flanders to Holland and our boat.

Nice to have been there, but we definitely prefer Holland to Belgium. They are just not neat enough over there. The bar has been lifted!