Wowie <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> Great pics all !!! I think Germany just went up 5 spots on the Must Visit Soon list <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />
Kyra, your pic reminds me of Twin Peaks <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> And a bit of the area around San Francisco.. Now I feel even more dumb for sticking to the big cities when I was there some years ago, missed the best parts of California apparently <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/disagree.gif" alt="" />
Anyway ! Went to Antwerp yesterday, came back with 100 Mb of pics <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
"Het Steen", steen means stone incidentally <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Started out as a fortress to secure De Schelde (a river) as a trading route, and so allowed the village/city of Antwerp to originate and grow around it. It was burned down in 836 with the Viking invasion, then rebuilt "possibly as early as the 11th century". It served as a guest house for important/rich people passing by Antwerp, until in the late middle ages it was used as a prison. Starting in 1850 it was used a museum, first of "General Old Stuff", currently as a museum of, er, ships or something.
Yep, memorizing tourist signs <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />