Stadsfeestzaal, Antwerp

My friend is visiting from England this week - she used to live in Belgium but moved back to the UK last year. When she lived here we often had days out together, so we planned a girly shopping trip to Antwerp today.

Antwerp is a lovely city and there are some fantastic buildings particularly around the Grote Markt. There is also a wonderful shopping mall called the Stadsfeestzaal. It was orginally built as a Festival Hall at the start of the 20th Century but was destroyed by fire in 2000.

The building was protected as a historic monument, so it was reconstructed using the original 1906 plans to create an upmarket shopping center with elegant ceilings and marble stairway which you can see here.

In the Stadsfeestzaal is the Laurent Parrier Champagne bar. It's built in the form of a big champagne flute, and you're seated in the centre of the 'flute' elevated about 7.5 metres above the ground. Of course we stopped here for a glass or two of champagne before lunch :-)

We've had a great day - it was lovely to catch up, had lots of laughs and even the sun came out. We certainly shopped until we dropped, only getting home at 8pm!