Diamonds... Girl's Best Friend?

February 9: So this weekend, I visited Antwerp, nicknamed the diamond capital of the world. The first thing we noticed when we got there was the beautiful train station. It reminded me alot of what I imagine the Musee D'Orsay in Paris would have looked like when it was still operating as a train station.

It was pretty easy to see why Antwerp was is called the diamond capital. As soon as you leave the station, there are many shops for selling, maintaining, and scamming diamonds. We decided to visit the diamond museum to learn about them instead. Unfortunately, we weren't able to take pictures, but I did see and learn alot. They had a huge variety of diamonds to look at, including the Hope diamond and others. Also, they had some of the original diamond processing tools and workshop amenities so I could see how it was actually done when it was done by hand. I thought it was interesting also that at one point, while 80% of diamonds passed through the port in Antwerp, if it has an Antwerp certification, it is guaranteed not to have any connection to African paramilitary groups. That means that no diamond certified in Antwerp is a "blood diamond".

Next, we went to go visit the Cathedral of Our Lady. It housed some artwork of Peter Paul Rubens, who was from Antwerp. It was started in 1351, but was never finished. If you look at the picture above, you can see that the second spire is not complete. As a guide for size, the one that is finished is 123 meters tall, or about 400 feet. Besides the detailed gothic exterior, I thought the complex buttresses inside were really interesting also.

After taking a little tour of the church, we walked along the river for a while. (Antwerp is connected to the North Sea by the Sheldt) It was one of the first really sunny days we had, and it was about 65 degrees out, so we spent probably an hour and a half just walking the boardwalk and enjoying the sun. After walking for quite a while, we took a break at the oldest building in Antwerp - the Steen. It's a medieval castle from around 1200 that was used to fortify the city. From around 1300-1800, it was also used as a prison for the city. I loved this castle, as it looked so much like a fairytale castle with perfect towers, a sort of draw-bridge, etc.

Finally, we went to check out the Plantin-Moretus museum. It's a print museum. I thought it would be kind of lame, but it was actually kind of interesting. They had a lot of things there, from the 2 oldest printing presses, libraries of the first printed books, a 36-line Gutenberg Bible, etc. It's actually the house of Plantin and his son Moretus, who started a print company in the 16th century, so you get to walk through the courtyards outside and take a break from stuffy museum air. They sold it to the city of Antwerp in the 1800s and they turned it into a museum.

After leaving the museum, we went off in search of a waffle for a snack, since you know it's not a day in Belgium without a waffle. Anyway, along the way, we came across the statue of a hand, which is supposedly the symbol of the city of Antwerp. according to wikipedia... there is a myth about a giant who collected a toll from everyone on the river. If they didn't pay, he cut off one of their hands and threw it into the river. The word "werpen" supposedly means something like throw, and "ant" sounds similar to hand, thus the symbol. Also, the fountain that I'm looking at below includes the giants hand. (It's also legend that the giant was killed by having his hand cut off and thrown into the river)

Finally, for those of you interested in something a little more risque, that last sculpture of the man has a strange story. Apparently, he's supposed to be a god of fertility or something. He used to be rather well endowed, (hence the awed little guys at the bottom) but too many infertile women from around Europe were coming to pay homage and hope for the best. The government decided it was too indecent and removed the phallus to discourage idle worshipping. Poor guy.

Anyway, we finally left and headed for home after a long, beautiful day of sightseeing!