Antwerp and our 12 1/2 year wedding anniversary

Last sunday (december 19th) was our 12 1/2 year wedding anniversary. We wanted to go to London (christmasshopping) but that was soooooooo expensive; we can go for two weeks with the 4 of us on a summer holiday for the money that we would have to spend on 3 days London. No way!
So i had to look for an alternative. And that alternative was Antwerp. And we had a GREAT ime!! Just loved it. The weather was very bad so the drive to Antwerp took us quite a long time (5 hrs instead of 1,5) but we arrived safely. We checked in at the hotel and we went out. We were in a clothesshop and we saw somebody from Amersfoort we knew, what a small world!
After a lovely dinner at Boston grill we went to the irish bar to watch some darts.
Saturday we did some shopping and a lot of walking. We went into a very expensive chocolatshop where we had some chocolat christmasballs made for the girls, with their names on it.


We went to see the glass house (music for life; there was a radiomarathon to raise money for the orphans. It was very busy and we couldn't get close.
In the evening some friends were going to come over for a meal but the weather was too bad. They didn't want to chance it (and i don't blame them it was slippery as hell with all the snow we had. so we decided to go back to the grillhouse we went to the day before. That shows what good quality it was!!! After dinner we went back to the glass house and to the irish pub.
On sunday we went to the vogeltjes markt but that wasn't how we remembered it from 15 years ago. We also booked a citywalk with a guide. That was so great! We saw so may beautifull buildings. We could go inside the city hall, normally not open for the public. In one word amazing!!!!! It was snowing really hard but still managed to take some nice photos from the walk.




We saw bagpipeplayers (nothing under their quilts with this weather, look hoiw hard it was snowing! Poor man!!)


We went for something to drink since we wer soooo cold from that 2 hrs walk. after that we had an early dinner at the Pelgrom. The entourage of the restaurant was great (in the cellars) but the food wasn't, what a pity!

After dinner we went back to the hotel and after a very nice hot bath we went to bed, we were so tired!
Our hotel was in the jewish area where all the diamant shop are. o my, i´ve never seen so many diamants in my life, and the prices, real expensive, even with 70% discount
Mondaymorning, we got up really early and drove home. It took us 4,5 hrs to get back. The roads were really slippery and an couple of times we skidded brrrrrrrrr! scary that was! But we got home in one piece. We had an absolute great time