Welcome to travels with Todd

As I was planning this trip, I allowed myself four options for my three days in Belgium. I could spend all three days in Brussels, two days in Brussels and one in Bruges, one day each in Brussels, Bruges, and Antwerp, or two days in Brussels and one in Antwerp. Influenced by the fact that Antwerp hosted the 1920 Olympic Games, (hence the title of this post) I chose the third.

I needed all of about 10 minutes to decide I’d made a happy choice. I was walking from the train station along a main pedestrian shopping street called Meir when I saw this ahead of me.

The reason this excited me should require no further explanation.

A brief rewind

The day was cloudy when I awoke a bit later than I’d planned Tuesday morning and, as I discovered on the short walk to the lobby for breakfast cool enough that I considered wearing the hoodie I’d packed. Since I’d already taken both a train and a Metro, returning to the Midi Station where I’d board the train to Antwerp was simply a matter of reversing what I’d done Monday. I found the express train and was in Antwerp’s Central Station in about 40 minutes.

By the time I arrived, I needed to use the toilet. While public toilets are quite common in Europe, they’re rarely free and usually don’t accept electronic payment. For this reason I always recommend having a few coins of the realm handy for when that need arises. At €1.10, the Antwerp station was a bit on the pricey side but I was well prepared.

I made a brief stop at the information center where I spoke to a helpful young man before I set out to explore the city. I note this because I wanted my walk to be purposeful and not stravage. Also, I sometimes find the navigation apps bumfuzzling. And, at these times, traveling solo allows me to audibly express my frustration telling the phone in Portuguese to shut up and “bite the knife” or to release some other stream of linguistic billingsgate with impunity and without concern that I might be offending a companion or trying to settle disputes about who is reading the directions correctly. Thus, one of the small pleasures of traveling alone.

I have to hand it to you

If Brussels has a thing for -pis statues, Antwerp’s answer is hands. There are at least three: the Hand of Duron Antigoon on Meir,

the statue of Silvius Brabo in Grote Markt,

and the small and challenging to find Hands Monument at Ruckersplaats.

The first two are connected to one another and to one of the stories behind Antwerp’s famous chocolate hands.

Duron Antigoon was a giant who demanded tolls from anyone passing his lair near the Scheldt river. Anyone who couldn’t or wouldn’t pay him had their hand severed and thrown into the river. Until the arrival of Silvius Brabo, that is. Brabo defeated the giant in battle and, in a rather biblical gesture, cleaved Antigoon’s hand and tossed it in the Scheldt. (One, likely fanciful, etymology for the city’s name has it derived from this myth because it closely resembles the Dutch phrase ‘hand werpen’ that translates as hand throwing. The more likely source is the Dutch phrase ‘aan de werpe” that means at the thrown up {land}.)

The darker symbolic source of the chocolate hands dates to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when the Belgian King Leopold II increased his personal coffers by exploiting the resources of what was then called the Congo Free State. Soldiers in Leopold’s army would sever the hands of Congolese workers who refused conscription into Leopold’s labor force.

As I was walking from the Hand of Duron to Grote Markt and Antwerp City Hall (one of the city’s more famous buildings) and the Brabo Fountain, I passed another bit of whimsy (and I think we need some whimsy after reading about Leopold II) in the form of dogs

and next to them,

cats.

A short walk of about 250m from Antwerp City Hall takes you to Groenplaats where the cathedral lovers among you will find the Cathedral of Our Lady that’s also often called the Cathedral of Antwerp. My purpose in seeking out this particular landmark wasn’t to visit the cathedral but to admire the sculpture of Nello and his dog Patrasche the central characters in the novel A Dog of Flanders by Marie Louise de la Ramée published under her pseudonym Ouida.

Considered a children’s classic, it’s a rather tragic novel about an orphaned boy named Nello and the dog he and his grandfather adopt and name Patrasche. After Nello’s grandfather dies, the boy and the dog are left homeless. The novel ends when Nello decides to visit the cathedral in Antwerp because as an aspiring artist he wants to see two paintings by Reubens displayed there but he can’t afford the admission. However, on Christmas Eve he finds the door of the cathedral unlocked and enters with his faithful dog. They are found dead of hypothermia in the morning.

Whispers of your name

At first glance, there might not seem to be a connection between this sculpture of people scaling a warehouse

at Godefriduskaai and Willemdok that’s colloquially called “klimmende mannen” and this one across the street.

But look closely at the climbers and you’ll see that not only are they similar in color but in the shapes comprising their bodies as well. They are a single work by Belgian artist Daisy Boman called Antwerpse fuuisteraar or The Whisperer. According to Boman, their colorlessness represents hope and life, but mourning and pain as well.

Stand closely behind The Whisperer and he delivers a message in English, French, and Dutch. This general message changes monthly and the day I visited, he was wondering about the thoughts of the people he sees passing by him whether they stop or not. Another feature of the sculpture is described on its website,

Kom naar ’t Eilandje en luister naar wat De Antwerpse Fluisteraar te vertellen heeft. Of fluister wat jij te vertellen hebt via de speciale ‘De Fluisteraar’ app. Laat je hart spreken en laat De Antwerpse Fluisteraar een persoonlijke boodschap influisteren in het oor van jouw uitverkoren luisteraar.

For those of you who don’t read Dutch it says,

Come to ‘t Eilandje and listen to what The Antwerp Whisperer has to say. Or whisper what you have to say via the special “The Whisperer” app. Let your heart speak and let The Antwerp Whisperer whisper a personal message into the ear of your chosen listener.

I listened but had nothing to say.

By now, I’d worked up something of an appetite and since I’d had my moules frites for dinner last night, it was time for another Belgian specialty – a waffle. I’ll detail that story and the rest of my day in Antwerp in the next post.