The cathedral could be described, in European terms, as "abc". Another Bloody Church, except this one contains quite a few fabulous art pieces.
And one heckuva clock tower.
We then visited the MAS Museum and rode eight escalators and mounted two flights of stairs to the observation deck.
This part of Antwerp has its own take on art.
Our next stop was Amsterdam, where, much to our shock, it was not raining. It was a glorious day (there's a joke about the cruise director here, but it requires a voice recording...we'll tell you when we see you). So glorious that we took a cruise along the canals without our cameras. We've seen and posted all kinds of stuff about Amsterdam, but we'd never been on the canals. It's a very nice way to see the city.
Ever heard of the Kiel Canal? We thought not. We hadn't either, and even had a hard time finding it on the map. It's the world's busiest artificial waterway and extends for 62 miles from Brunsbuttel at the mouth of the Elbe River to Kiel Harbor. It was built between 1887 and 1895 and was enlarged twice to accommodate larger ships. Using this canal saves about 250 nautical miles over going around the Jutland Peninsula. It also keeps ships away from the storm-prone waters up there. We had plenty of company in the canal.
There is a bike path all the way along, and plenty of people were taking advantage of it to ride, stop at various pubs and viewpoints, and take pictures of our ship passing by.
The passage took us about 11 hours. We started in around noon and we were in the final lock at bedtime. The next day was a sea day as we were on our way to Stockholm, Sweden.
