Ghent to Antwerp to Amsterdam
Saturday 1st August 2015
Breakfast in Ghent, Lunch in Antwerp (including a vist to the zoo) then followed by a rather more arduous journey than we'd hoped for to finally get to Amsterdam in time for a late dinner.
Belgium and the Netherlands
John's Pictures

09:22:09
Breakfast at a cafe near our hotel in Ghent.

09:22:28
My macchiato.

10:17:40
The lobby of our hotel in Ghent.

10:36:26
The square in front of one of the churches in Ghent.

11:39:53
Ghent station.

12:55:05
...and now Antwerp station.

12:57:23
Chie and her Mum at Antwerp station.

13:32:27
There were a few fairground rides outside Antwerp station. I thought Erika looked rather suave in this classic car (unfortunately I couldn't manage to get a photo of her facing me!).

13:33:59

13:34:09

13:34:11

13:34:22

13:48:13
Erika on one of the other rides.

13:48:34

14:19:34
At the restaurant (more of a bar really) whee we had lunch, the beer tasting flight / platter / whatever you call it.

14:28:40
We nominally ordered a pizza for Erika but she didn't really eat any of it.

14:31:54

15:40:15
Whilst Chie and her parents did a bit of sightseeing, I decided Erika might instead prefer to go to Antwerp Zoo. Here's the penguins.

16:04:00
Bear and monkeys sharing an enclosure.

16:04:19

16:20:21
Erika on yet another ride!

16:20:51

16:21:56

16:25:05
...her second turn on this ride, on a different animal.

17:01:33
On board the slow, crowded train from Antwerp to Amsterdam (the faster trains today were all fully booked).

17:02:08
Erika took this picture of me.

17:23:31
Erika on the train.

18:17:39
On the second train, which also seemed to take forever.

20:15:58
After an arduous slog across Amsterdam (we tried to get a taxi but he said all the roads were too busy, so we walked which was not much fun) we finally got to our hotel, the Andaz. Our room was quite nice.

20:16:42

21:35:24
As I ended up not eating anything for dinner the previous day, I wanted a safe, easy option tonight, and lazily just looked on the web for the nearest half decent sounding Italian restaurant to the hotel. I offered to just go with Erika so Chie and her parents could eat something more locally appropriate but they didn't seem to have the enthusiasm to search around either.

22:01:30
On the way back to the hotel, this bit of Amsterdam at least looking quite pretty.