Another week in this great photography contest hosted by . This week it's all about RIVERS LANDSCAPES OF THE WORLD. If you want to join this contest you can find more here.
This time I take you to Antwerp, Belgium. I lived there for 3 years (a long time ago) and still love to go back to the city. I used to live in the old town center but this pictures is made just outside town, near the harbor. Antwerp has a huge seaport as an entry to Europe. It is Europe’s second-largest seaport, after Rotterdam (The Netherlands). The port is at the end end of the tidal estuary of the Scheldt (De Schelde in Dutch).
The oldest part dates back to 1811 when Napolean Bonaparte saw the potential of the harbor.
That day is was a bit cloudy and that added some calmness to the picture.
This is the original version of the picture, but I prefer the black and white version.
In the same are is a statue of "het havenmeisje" (harbour girl), made by the Dutch sculpture Carla Kamphuis-Meijer and based on the works of Eugeen Van Mieghem (1875-1930), who grew up in this area. His work shows the hard life of working people in the harbor area.
To me it looks like a young woman who's overlooking the water, waiting for her husband to come back from a long travel. But that's just my impression.
Although it was a cloudy day I still remember walking around in that specific area. In the 80's it was a deteriorated area and a forgotten corner of Antwerp. Somewhere in the 90's projects started to modernize the area. Now the area is uplifted and one of the "hotspots" in Antwerp.