Wednesday, August 15th, was a national holiday in Belgium.  Because I am also off on Tuesdays, I invited Barbara and Sofie (2 of my sister-in-laws) to come to Antwerp and visit museums and also Rubensmarkt, a special market in the Grote Markt that always takes place on the 15th of August, where the vendors are all dressed in 17th century clothes.  During the 2 days, we visited the Fotomuseum (FoMu), Sofie’s choice, and the Museum aan de stroom (MAS, featured in this post: Part II), Barbara’s choice. We also had time to visit a couple of cafés and make a delicious dinner!

Fotomuseum (FoMu)

Fotomuseum (FoMu)

First things first, Caffenation! I made a post about the coffee shop in June (click here to visit the post) and it seemed like a great place to relax before having to make dinner.

Caffènation

1 mint tea and 2 cappuccinos of the week with caramel topping

Barbara and I with our cappuccinos of the week

Sofie enjoying her mint tea

Cheers, y’all

Making dinner

For dinner we had a lot of fun making loempias for dinner. We used rice paper like in my previous post over Summer Rolls (click here to visit the post), but this time combined chicken with wok vegetables, fresh basil, and rice noodles.

Sofie and I making dinner!

Rubensmarkt

The next day, on our way to MAS (photos will be in the Part II post), we took a longer route so we could visit Rubensmarkt in the Grote Markt.  Because August 15th is Mother’s Day in Antwerp (and only in Antwerp, not the whole of Belgium), the market was a lot more crowded than we expected!  It was fun to see all of the vendors dressed up in the 17th century costumes.

Rubensmarkt

Rubensmarkt

Rubensmarkt

Barbara and me with one of the vendors

Rubensmarkt (It was also pride week!)