Living in Leuven: Antwerp

We took a side trip to Antwerp and the Belgium coast. Antwerp was much closer than we thought (only a 45 minute drive). Here's some of the best pics:

Cathedral in the center of town - even though we've seen several around Europe this one was still impressive.

Jack at the famous statue of Brabo throwing the giants hand. Legend has it that Antigoon was a giant that was charging high tariffs on all river traffic. Brabo fought him and cut off his hand.

Close up of one of the sea monsters

Castle near the river - we saw this ivy on several buildings, very striking in the fall colors

Taking the very long pedestrian tunnel under the river

Some great views of the city from across the river

Boys on a large hand statue (maybe it's Antigoons hand?)

Jack and Jesse cutting loose in Antwerp

After a rainy night in Antwerp we made the short drive to the coast. Our first stop was the Atlantic sea wall museum. These were the remains of fortifications used as a shore battery in WWI and then rebuilt and reused as part of the sea wall defenses against invasion in WWII. The great thing about this site is that they've tried to recreate the scenes of soldiers and weapons used at the location.

Jack and Jesse looking out for enemy aircraft

The kids loved all the tunnels and trenches you can explore

One of the several examples of uniforms and weapons (Jesse talked about the machine guns for the rest of the day).

After exploring the defenses we drove up the coast to De Haan, a very nice seaside resort.

Boys at the beach

On the way home we stopped by Bruges. I also took the drive through the country to practice driving the stick shift. All went well till we hit the city and I stalled a couple times at street lights. By the end of the drive I had it pretty well figured out but it's still not completely natural yet.