zuider terra

Last Sunday night we enjoyed the nice Japanese style Kamo nabe with matsutake mushrooms , did a laundry we hoped would dry by the next day and caught up on sleep while staying at Noyuri's friends home in Paris.
Next day over a soundtrack of Yukkiko's reggae tape we were kindly driven through the crowded streets up to Paris Nord station where we caught a train to Antwerp and settled in for a one hour ride, transfer at Lille and we got into Antwerp after dark ...
Cool young taxi driver with a ponytail was next in the taxi line and we got a nice ride through town on the way South to zuid and the B&B we were going to stay at for the next 2 days .
I had found this penthouse online and it was quite nice , good location somewhat special all around . It was a good sized loft style room with high ceiling and one glass wall with a nice white curtain to draw across it , robes , mini stereo set , cherry beers brought to us by the owner .
It was already past 9 so we didn't know what we might find open foodwise but we went just a few feet and found the good italian pizza , soup dinner before their kitchen's closed at 10 .
In front of the restaurant was the massive Fine Arts Museum
trams rolled by , bikes , walkers easy open feeling in Antwerp and we slept well .
Tue's we explored Antwerp after checking email and immediately found
Ann Demeulemeester'wonderful shop where I could check out the season's men wear on the second floor, watch video of the past season shows .
Then onto Veronique Branquinho's Shop on Nationalestraat , Louis ,
Modepaleis -Dries Van Noten , nice lunch a at a place i recalled from the Times recommendation online , further shopping by Noyuri to Francis which i found amazing looking through the racks there ...
I headed to the river side to catch a bit of sunset before heading bk to the room
Dinner that night we got out late again and decided on the Red Hat ,
a superior local place that was probably better then it's surrounding restuarants on the tourist row there by the cathedrals where we had the mussels and frites , fish soup and a glass of young Veniver .
Exploring the area around there led us to a larger square and the Grobe markt with Statues figures dragons piling high in the center
A nice second morning in Antwerp a bit rainy but we did make it to Modenatie and the Russian show , the book store (Wirtz Gardens , Ziggy Stardust by Mick Rock).

We packed and called taxi to Station and onto Brussels Wed. afternoon eating the sandwiches we had made at the B&B earlier
From the area around the station we could see another old area which was amazing ,
I saw a big round window in one of the buildings , other odd shapes and special workings , another Anvers 16th century old town