Antwerp Day 3- Chocolate, churches and charity shops!

It's been a while since my last post on our Antwerp holiday!  I finally managed to get some photos copied across.

On our Monday in Antwerp, we woke up fairly late and after a lazy breakfast, had to hotfoot it across town on the Velo hire bikes to near the railway station. We had booked to go to Antwerp's Chocolate Museum. Having been to, and loved the Bruges Chocolate museum in 2019, I was excited for this one.

We arrived and put our bags in lockers.  They told us that the whole exhibit was Covid safe with nothing we needed to touch and was timed with all doors to sections so that people in groups didn't have to have any contact with other people. It was very clever.

The whole museum was really interesting with a detailed history of chocolate from bean to processing, to wrapping to all the different types and important Chocolatiers. It was hugely informative and fun to see.

One part of the exhibition showed you a vintage Belgium chocolatier and you got to hear from the woman who ran it (a reenaction)

One part showed some of the most iconic individual chocolates and their shapes in massive form

and introduced you to the great innovators in chocolate.  Here above is the Guylian shell.  Apparently, the most recent innovation was a truly new type of chocolate- Ruby Chocolate!

There were a few sections where you could see chocolatiers decorating and making chocolates.  There are opportunities to join demonstrations but sadly there were none when we were there which was sad as I ADORED this part of the Bruge chocolate museum!

This section here was where they introduced us to the ethical side of chocolate making and how the Chocolate Line is trying to support the communities who harvest and grow cocoa for them.

There were many 'instagram photo' type locations for you to take your picture.

As we progressed through, I became more and more disappointed at the lack of opportunities to TRY any chocolate.  At the Bruges one, there were chocolate button dispensers in various places.

 

It was only in the last room (before the shop), that we FINALLY got to try some chocolate. We were met by a lady who handed us a spoon each and showed us how to operate these melted chocolate machines.  They would dispense a sample of melted chocolate of all the different blends and combinations onto your spoon.  We started with those blends with a really large cocoa content and progressed to lots of different ones including the aforementioned ruby chocolate.

The warm liquid chocolate was delicious!!  We even managed a couple of samples of a few of them as the lady just left you to it!

We went into the shop where CBC chose some presents and some treats.

We then made a hasty stampede towards St Charles Borromeo church where I would be meeting one of my favourite Belgium blogger, the wonderful Ann!

We were pretty hungry and went into a nearby cafe where we ordered some food, hoping it would arrive quickly (which it didn't!).  Luckily, Ann was lovely enough to come and join us whilst we ate out lunch!

It was SOOOOO exciting to see Ann in real life after seeing her in beautiful pictures for so long! She is just as beautiful and stylish  in real life as she is in her photos!  She's also so incredibly kind and friendly! I've often been incredulous over Ann's writing- there is no way I could write in a language other than my native one in such an idiomatic way than Ann does and she is JUST the perfect person to chat to! It's so nice to be able to be able to natter and talk about those things you can't when typing.

Once we'd eaten our lunch, we headed to St Charles Borromeo- a well known Baroque church. It was built in the 1600's.  Sadly, the original 39 ceiling paintings by Rubens and lots of other works were destroyed, around about 100 years after it was built, in a fire.

It looks fairly undecorative from the outside, but the inside is WONDERFUL!

There is a wonderful Rubens altar painting.

The church is crammed full of things to look at- marblework, wood carvings, paintings and decorative floors. The organ is pretty exciting too!

There were confession booths here- so intricate!

After this, We headed off to......yes.....THINK TWICE!  For anyone who does not read Ann's blog, Think Twice is the most incredible Secondhand clothing chain in Belgium who have a very vast array of vintage clothes at reasonable prices.  They then have sale days where items get progressively cheaper until the final day where EVERYTHING is 1Euro! Ann is the Think Twice queen!

I was fortunate enough to be there with Ann on the penultimate 2 Euro day!  Because of Covid measures, we had to queue outside. At which point, CBC took himself off to go and seek a loo, which gave Ann and I an opportunity to have a proper chat which wouldn't bore him through not knowing all the things we were talking about!  Her we are in the T2 queue! You can see the T2 poster advertising the sale on the window!

We finally made it into the shop!   We walked around and realised we were very compatible shopping partners, showing each other things we though the other would like and giggling about things!  The selection was really good! 

We both ended up making purchases- Ann one skirt and me, a couple of items to add to my previous purchases from an alternative T2 I'd visited the previous day (there are FOUR in Antwerp!)

I was really sad when we had to leave so I walked with Ann to meet Jos, her husband, who was coming to pick her up in the car.  It was really lovely to meet him too!

We'd had SUCH  a jolly, easy time and I felt SO privileged to be able to meet someone who has become a good friend via blogland over the past few years! The nice thing was that we ended up texting each other all through my visit (and beyond) and it made my holiday that bit extra special that I had a friend who I could share my adventures with, who knew exactly what and where I was talking about! Ann had already given me lots of brilliant suggestions for places to visit!

That evening, CBC and I headed out to dinner to a bistro near Volkstraat which served some traditional Belgian dishes and I took the opportunity to choose the dish Ann had mentioned to be earlier when we asked about traditional Belgian dishes. I THINK it was called Endives au Jambon. Apparently endives or chicory was dicovered by a Belgian farmer in 1830.

CBC and I are HUGE Chicory fans so I was gleeful to try it.

As you can see, I was served the most ENORMOUS portion- that's my hand right next to it! It was IMMENSE.

A thick layer of bechamel cheese sauce with ham rolls and lots of endives plus mashed potato.

I discovered, after wadingt through one half, that all the MASHED potato was on the side I left till last and I'd eaten all the endives and ham on the left so my meal ended up being rather heavy-going on the mash at the end but it was a GREAT choice.  CBC had the beef stew. Yes, he forgo his veggie ways to try it. When in Belgium....

It had been a rather wonderful day and I wondered what would be next?

Oh...you want to see my T2 purchases????

Well, as well as the two skirts I showed in previous posts (the red daisy one and the blue/purple stripy glittery one, plus a woven leather belt), I bought the above.

Most useful were the navy camisole and the corduroy rose skirt which I wore whilst there. I've now worn everything except the rainbow dress and the teal top!

Oh...and here's an unheard of photo of me trying CBC's cherry beer. I think it was a La Chouffe beer.

I LOATHE and DETEST beer.  Watch me drink it and see what true horror and abject disgust looks like (apparently it's hilarious) but CBC insisted I try this and it was pleasant! I even took an extra sip when he went to the loo!

Hope you are having a lovely day!

xx

The sights of an East-London walk to the Olympic Park

Last Sunday, we headed up to London after seeing CBC's new nephew.

Since it was a delightfully sunny day, we decided to walk along the canal from Bow towards the Olympic Park.

 There was lots of interesting graffiti along the way.

 I really liked seeing the Lock system here.

 When we were almost at the Three Mills, we noticed the canal was completely covered in Duckweed rendering it a sickly shade of green!

 The Crocodile is fun- I saw a few of those.

 And another...

 Here is the Three Mills.

 I was not sure what this unusual construction was but it was particularly striking.

 I have seen this brightly coloured perspex-clad building from the Railway line on numerous occasions but this is the first time I have stood alongside it.

 In the Olympic Park, we reached the Orbit which now has a slide you can go down...for £15!

 The sight of the Aquatic centre, the Olympic swimming pool made all of us realise we wished to go and swim so we decided to arrange an excursion.

 I've not been to the Olympic Park since the Opening Ceremony Dress rehearsal in 2012, so there was a lot for me to take in.

 We reached a little glade of trees with almost mahogany-coloured trees. Does anyone know what they are?

 As we walked along the middle, these weird orbs made me think the Toclafane from Doctor Who series 4 had invaded!!!

 As we neared the Aquatic centre, we saw these fun-looking swan boats. This looks like an exciting endeavour for a future occasion!

 Walking alongside the Aquatic centre made one feel like one was alongside the Ark or a rather imposing space-vehicle!

 As the sun set, the skies became a vision of beauty.

 Soon, we realised it would be prudent to return home so we had to wend our way back to Bow to fetch the car.

 They did try to persuade me to take the Santander Bikes but since I was wearing that Maxi dress and sandals from last week, it seemed somewhat foolhardy. We took the Docklands instead...

 As we left the Olympic park, we vowed to return for adventures soon.

 And we have indeed already begun those so stay tuned to find out what we did soon.

Bidding you a good night.

Have you been to the Stratford Olympic Park?

xx

A sailor went to sea, sea, sea...

A few weeks ago, we headed off to Aldeburgh in Suffolk for the Aldeburgh music festival.  We headed off far too late due to 'jet lag' from a massive all-nighter of work two days prior, so we had little time to enjoy the briny air in Aldeburgh by the time we had set up our tents and gone to pick up CBC's brother.



Nonetheless, we still managed to have a gentle meander along the beach, enjoy an ice-cream and inhale some of that sea air.

Of course, I theme-dressed!  My Jaeger Boutique sailor dress is one of my most beloved dresses and I teamed it with my nautical hat bought in Split, Croatia, last summer. I only wish I'd had time to paddle. It was deliciously warm, but the towels were at the campsite and I didn't fancy sand in my shoes!








It is just SO picturesque there. Of course, because it is so pretty, it is hideously expensive to buy houses there. You do feel you are in some olden time time-warp here, except when you see all those London shops like Jack Wills, Joules, Crew Clothing and the such-like.  Everything is pretty, clean and you can expect to pay a million pounds for even a modest a sea-view flat here!













When I come to Aldeburgh, of course my mind is filled with the soundscape of Benjamin Britten's opera, Peter Grimes, which I was privileged to play a few years ago. It was one of the truly most exciting musical pieces I have ever performed. I have been listening to 2 of the four sea interludes with my year 2's as our topic is seaside and we have been comparing the atmosphere and features of the two sea interludes, "Dawn" and "The Storm" and composed our own interludes for a contrasting song about the sea this week, thus this place and music has remained in my mind.
Listen to Dawn - it is so peaceful







Have you ever visited Aldeburgh? Have you ever listened to Benjamin Britten's music?
 He is one of the greatest British composers who ever lived and is counted up there amongst the Great composers of all time.
xxx