In Belgium, we had chosen Waterloo as our first touristic stop. Most of us know about the important battle which has taken place near Waterloo, but not everybody knows where it lies (we didn’t). The battle of Waterloo marked the final defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was beaten by the British and Allied forces under the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian army led by Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. The battle ended Napoleon’s rule and changed the course of European history.
The battlefield of 1815 is marked by a steep hill with a lion on top, a rotunda with a panorama and a modern museum, built completely underground.
We enjoyed especially the 3D film about the battle, the panorama, as we love them, and the climb up the hill with the view over a nowadays peaceful landscape.
King William I of the Netherlands ordered the construction of the Lion’s Mound in 1820. It commemorates the spot on the battlefield of Waterloo where the king’s elder son, Prince William of Orange, is presumed to have been wounded by a musket ball.
The next day, we stopped at the Atomium in Brussel. We waited patiently to get into the lift, which took us to the top atom. As a reward for waiting so long, we treated us with a snack in the restaurant.
Afterwards we made our way through the other atoms, connected by escalators or stairs, and filled with modern installations and an exhibition about the history of the Atomium.
The Atomium was constructed as the centrepiece of the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair as a tribute to scientific progress, as well as to symbolise Belgian engineering skills at the time. It represents an iron crystal, magnified 165 billion times.
Afterwards, we strolled through Mini-Europe, noticing that we hadn’t visited all of the sites representing Europe yet. Something we will have to remedy after our trip to South America!
Finally, we arrived in Antwerp, where we used the city camping to easily explore the city centre on the other side of the river Scheldt.
With the waterbus, we arrived at Het Steen (The Stone), the gate wing of the demolished castle of the Dukes of Brabant on the Scheldt-quai.
The Gothic Cathedral of Our Lady, majestically overlooking the city, was started in 1352. It is the largest Gothic church in Belgium, with its tower rising 123 meters over the city. It contains a number of significant works by the Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens, as well as other artists.
The Grote Markt is dominated by the Renaissance Town Hall, as well as numerous guildhalls with elaborate façades.
We also found the Voetgangerstunnel, a 572-meter-long tunnel crossing under the river Scheldt, which was opened in 1933. One of its unique features is the wooden escalator, which has been in operation since the tunnel’s opening.
We will now prepare for the delivery of our camper to the port, pack everything we will take with us, clean the camper, get the gas certificate,…… More soon!