July 9: Antwerpen bij nacht

Antwerpen (english: Antwerp) is really a beautiful Belgian city. It rains most of the time, and today was no exception. In July, it is hot, especially on the top floor of a four-story building, in an apartment where you can't open the windows. Why not? Because the Belgians don't believe in screens, and if you open the windows, the mosquitoes come in and hide, and then come out and enjoy a real feast while you are asleep.

The temperature at the heat of the day today was about 87 Farenheit, but it cools off quickly and around 9 pm is a comfortable 65. It goes down to about 55 early in the morning. I can live without air conditioning for the few days I'm here.

The most prominent building in Antwerp is the Kathedraal of our Lady. The top of the spire is 123 meters from the base, or approximately the height of a 38-story building.

This is the building in front of which William Tyndale was arrested for heresy for publishing the Bible in vernacular English for the common people.  Antwerp has always been a cosmopolitan merchant city, and has always had relatively close ties economically (but not politically) with the English.

The first photo here is taken from Groenplatz, or "green place", so-called because it was a park before Hitler's V-bombs turned it into a crater. The Belgians took advantage of the crater to put in a parking garage, covered with concrete, and planted token trees around here and there. In the center of the Groenplatz is a statue of Peter Paul Rubens, the most famous Antwerpian ever. Rubens is one of the earliest Dutch Master artists (painters). I'm sure you've seen some of his works, even though you may not have known who it was who painted them. Rubens taught Anthony Van Dyke, and was credited by Rembrandt for influencing his (Rembrandt's) style more than any other master.

The second picture is the Antwerp Stadhuis, or city hall, located on the Grote Markt, or great market square. The city hall is adorned with dozens of flags, representing all kinds of things, including former flags of the counts of Flanders who used to own these parts. The flags are mostly rolled up in this picture and look like colored sticks. Click on the picture for a bigger version.

In front of the city hall, if you look closely, you can see the statue of Brabo. (It appears blue in the artificial light... it is made of weathered bronze and in daylight is the same color green as the Statue of Liberty.)

Brabo is a legendary, if not downright mythical, Roman soldier credited with making Antwerp what it is today.

According to the story, a big bad giant lived in the Steen (pronounced "stain", meaning "stone", a castle on the river, still standing today just a few blocks from the city hall). Whenever a ship would try to sail up the river, the giant would wade out and stop it and demand tribute. If the ship refused to pay the tax, the giant would cut off the hand of the ship's captain with his sword.

Well, needless to say, this tended to discourage trading ships from coming up the river, and thus it severely hindered the city fathers' efforts at economic growth and development. (City fathers haven't changed much over the centuries, have they?)

The city fathers put out the word that they would pay handsomely for someone to fix the problem. Along comes Brabo, and he slays the giant and -- eye-for-an-eye style -- cuts off the giant's hand and flings it into the river.

The Dutch word for flinging or throwing is "werpen", from which comes the English word "whip" when used for flinging or slinging. The Middle-Ages Dutch pronunciation "Ant" meant "hand". Hence, "Ant - werpen", or "hand-flinging"...

So Antwerpen means "hand flinging". There is a giant hand on the main shopping street. The city symbol is a hand, and you see hands on all city correspondence, announcements, posters, buildings, etc.

Yeah, it's kinda hokey, but it makes a nice story. The statue in front of the city hall features the dead giant's body at the bottom, on top of the rocks, and Brabo at the top, flinging the hand. The statue is a fountain, and during the day, the hand spurts water from what would be the vein in the cut-off hand. Oooo, gross, as the teenage girls say.

The Kathedraal is a block from city hall. The Katherdraal is very pretty, ornate, and exceptionally Gothic in architecture, both inside and out. The clocks on the spire are six meters (about 20 feet) in diameter, which gives you some perspective about how big the building is.

Yes, I took all these pictures. The next three pictures were taken in OudeStadt (old city) in the historical area, near the Kathedraal, or in front of the city hall. Click on them for a larger edition. They show the guild houses. Guild houses in the middle ages are akin to union halls. The gold statues at the roof peak of each guild house represents its craft or trade. There is a guild house for bakers, one for painters, one for sail makers, one for tailors, one for coopers (pot-smiths), one for cobblers, one for sword-makers, one for carpenters, etc. (The butchers have a special building a few blocks away. Given the heat of the summer and the lack of refrigeration and laundry facilities in the middle ages, it is very logical that the butchers would have to put their house a few blocks down-wind from the other trades!)

The guild house was used for meetings by the respective craftsmen. They held classes for their apprentices and journeymen, voted on guild business, including pricing, requirements for "certification", etc. The guild hall was also the "watering hole" for the guild members. Visiting craftsmen and tradesmen from out of town were always welcome to spend the night at their specific guild house. The guild houses had a reputation for copious consumption of the Belgian national beverage, and supposedly that's why most guild houses today have pubs and taverns on their ground floor.

Incidentally, there are supposedly well over 400 brands of beer brewed in Belgium, including many who are brewed in real monasteries by monks who wear robes with ropes tied around the waist. (There is a monastery down the street from where I'm at as I write this, and yes, they wear the black robes with the rope. They run a half-way house for drug addicts. Ironic, isn't it?)

The final photo is a picture of Albrecht Durer's house. Durer was an artist who was a generation ahead of Rubens, and his work is nowhere near the level of detail of Rubens, but still, he's a big name in art circles, so the city preserved his house and studio. It is about four blocks from the Kathedraal, on the way to our apartment and the studio where I'm staying this trip.

The old part of town where these pictures were all taken is about ten blocks from where my studio presently is, and from where I'm posting this. Back in 2004 and again in 2005, when Debbie (oops, Dubby) and DJ and the Cathrynator were here, we lived about six blocks from the location where these pics were taken.



Enjoy.