Antwerp | Europe seemed to have hit “pause” ⏸️

I spent 2.5 days here and—oops—totally forgot that on Sundays most shops stay shut. 😅 Missed a bunch of boutiques, but still scored at DVN (menswear felt stronger IMO). 📍 Modepaleis Dries van Noten • MOMU fashion museum: ground-floor split between iconic houses and Antwerp-student pieces; upstairs video room. The thing I still remember? A Prada ad. 🤷🏻‍♂️ 📍 MoMu – Fashion Museum Antwerp Food rule: skip the research—just join the busiest terrace. 🍽️ After wandering Diamond Street I left with the illusion that diamonds are… cheap? 😂 (Sunday = every antique jeweler closed). Had to hunt vintage gems back in Paris. 📍 Adin Antique, Vintage & Estate Jewelry Diamond Museum (€12) 📍 DIVA Worth a peek, but set expectations—collections are tiny next to Paris giants. Cathedral of Our Lady 📍 Cathedral of our Lady Photo magnet: the “Dog of Flanders” statue. Every minute a kid climbs it; I sat for half an hour shooting the parade of dogs and toddlers. 🐶📸 World’s “most beautiful” station? It really is—you feel Antwerp’s last-century swagger. Step outside, though, and €1 shops sell the same trinkets you find in China’s tier-4 towns—yet prices are Paris-level. 🤡 No turnstiles, no gates, no ticket checks on metro or trains. Basically, buying a ticket feels like a voluntary donation to the Belgian treasury. 😇 (I stopped donating after day one.) Pickpockets? Never saw any—maybe because we all looked too broke. Paris feels riskier (though even there cops patrol every other street now 👮🏻‍♀️). Fun fact: Antwerp was once Europe’s diamond-capital, sitting at the continent’s crossroads—Dutch above, France below, sea to the west, Germany east. That’s why most Belgians juggle three languages. 😉 Dutch dominates here; many menus have zero English—Google Translate is your best friend. Bottom line: come for a taste of vintage Europe, but don’t expect the “I-could-return-forever” magnetism of Paris. #EuropeTravel #Belgium #Antwerp #RealityCheck #DisenchantmentIsExperience #OffTheRadar