Sorry for the lack of blog posts. We've been traveling so much by the time I get back I've just been passing out in my bed! Finally, a few hours to sit down so I'll fill you in on what we've done!
Monday was our last full day of classes and Tuesday morning we only had two hours until we took off for the day. Our first site visits were in Antwerp and our second was a monastery only 30 minutes out of the city. We starting walking to our first visit, the Plantin Moretus House.
Our guide was explaining something about this building but I couldn't quite hear… I took a picture of the architecture though
Also I was distracted because there was a soccer ball stuck above the window. Can you see it?
Antwerp serves horse meat...
The Square across from the Meir
Plantin Moretus House. The house is one of the Europe's oldest printing houses, especially important because it was established during the time of the Catholic Protestant Conflict and also during the rise of humanism. The house ended up being a lot more interesting than I had expected. Great tour!
The first movable type.
The house established "Garamond" type.
Le Bonheur means "the happiness". This text was pretty cool, it was about the steps to happiness.
After the tour of the Plantin Moretus House we walked over to Our Lady of Antwerp Cathedral. I have several pictures of the exterior in an earlier blog post. Although the Cathedral is large in size it is not my favorite that I have seen so far.
Rubens altarpiece
Satirical. The bishop who controlled the church would look over the people to make sure they were coming to mass to get their money and spending it wisely.
After our first two tours we had about two hours to spend to get food somewhere in Antwerp and then get on the bus to go to the monastery. Wells and I went to a sandwich shop by the hotel to grab them to go. Kip was the only thing I recognized on the menu so I chose it that way but it ended up being great. Kip = chicken
The Abbey of Tongerlo
At the beginning of the tour a monk gave us a general history of the abbey however afterwords there were about five of us that stood around and talked to him for an hour. It was interesting to hear his views on the future of monasteries, on Pope Francis and on Belgian Catholics.
"Work Quickly Slowly"
A panorama of the grounds
Below is their church.
After we visited the monastery we had an hour break and a group of us decided to go see their afternoon prayers. After we got out we crossed the street for dinner all together. Tomato soup, steak and ice-cream and the monk's beer.
Emily
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