Get the'sen t'Antwerp!

We'd booked using t'interweb with RyanAir's cheap flights and a city centre hotel with OctopusTravel, and it turned out to be a cracking trip. Craig likes his Belgian ales and we agreed to sample as many as we could in the two and a half days we were there!
We started off with a leisurely walk from the square where our hotel and the impressive Grande Central Train Station were situated down to the old part of town calling at a couple of small bars on the way.

First ticked off the list was a Duvel and a De Koninck (the local beer), before sinking....er I mean sampling, a couple of Leffes, I went for the blonde Triple and my portly travel companion the bruin. Both were strong, 8.5 and 6.6% respectively.
Chips are very, very popular in Belgium and if you go and sample some you'll see why. Double fried until crisp and golden and served with mayonnaise or a variety of other sauces and plenty of salt. I have no picture of these as they disappeared very quickly but lordy lordy they give you a thirst! So we moved on to the next bar in the Grotte Market area and picked up the heavy drinks menu.....
As much as we were desperate to sample the famous 'moules' available around the square but 23 Euros somehow seemed a bit expensive, so we set off in search of something different.
As with all cities these days there's a real mix of International restaurants, we ended up in an African one called Mata Mata & Pili Pili on 44, Hoogstraat. I had coconut and sweet potato soup followed by a Chicken in a palm note sauce (neither of us could remeber what Craig had but it could have involved lamb at some point). The food was spicy and very very good.
As they say in the Big Brother house... Day Two! Surprisingly got up too late to sample the hotel breakfast, but a tram to the large open air market provided us with some fantastic Chimay cheese made by the Trappist monks, pickled stuffed chillis, olives and some warm, fresh crusty bread. This was duly shared out between the two of us as we sat trying some Hoegarden Rose and Kasteel in the sunsine outside another welcoming and eccentric bar.

The food shops around the town were equally as good as the market, with locals queing outside for the fresh produce, whether it was seafood, cake or not your run-of-the-mill wedding vol-au vonts (below).

More wonderful chips with mayo and beers were to follow down at the newly renovated dock area, with plenty of deep, meaningful conversations that were probably neither deep nor meaningful but who cares when you're enjoying yourself
All in all a Antwerp is a fantastic venue whether you're a beer freak or not. Great buildings, friendly people ........ and did I mention the chips?