The Purple Penguin

So Joe has been working in Amsterdam all week, leaving me all on my own. Except last night I got on the ferry and came over. Got to Rotterdam and got on the 09.58 train to Antwerp. Joe got on the 09.18 from Amsterdam to Antwerp. I booked the tickets separately. Our seats were across from each other. Now that is planning.

Antwerp train station is pretty nifty – lots of levels with trains! Four levels – we came in on the bottom level and left on the top level. So nifty! And do read the link – apparently the design is interesting.

So the the first thing we did in Antwerp was sort our tickets to Bruges. Then walked all over the historic district of Antwerp – well, after stopping for brunch. So an eggy omelette thing with bacon and bread and coffee later we were walking in the historic district of Antwep. Saw the main square, apparently there is a bollock festival (according to Joe, actually it’s Bollekesfeest, ok, same difference)  and walked along the river. Walked around Het Steen (giggled at the Lange Wapper statue – Joe will have to put that on Flickr!) and back through Antwerp to the station. To find out that tickets bought in a machine at Antwerp must be used within an hour. So ours are no good. The man at the ticket office was very nice, very helpful, talked us through the entire claim process, sorted out new tickets, told us the train we needed, printed a schedule, talked us through the changes, highlighted the information we needed – all the while we were smiling and nodding and fretting; because, the train he was talking about left in five minutes. And we needed to get our luggage from left luggage and find the platform (four levels, remember?) We got sorted and found the platform (luckily not far from the left luggage), but in the end our tickets were never checked! We’re going to see if we can use the original tickets to get back. Or maybe just go straight for the Netherlands.

So across to Ghent; we were there long enough to scoot from platform 4 to platform 12 and the train to Bruges. Got to Bruges and headed for the Hotel Academie where Joe got in the bath and I relaxed and rested. The walk through Bruges was lovely and I’m looking forward to seeing everything tomorrow. But for now we’re out for flamed grilled meat and frites!