More pictures from Europe, Antwerp primarily

Even more piccies from Europa. Images are in all kinds of weird orders due to how the forum's pic adding features work. This is all Dusseldorf

A few more from Belin

Nice pics, i see you learned how train services work around here the hard way?

Now I'm feeling nostalgic for Antwerp...especially given that the borders are closed and I definitely can't get there now. Looks like you hit a lot of the highlights though, loved the pics! Hope you enjoyed it regardless of all the public transport fuckery. I found out from my parents last time I was there that there are a lot of staffing problems for the bus/tram company in the region and that it caused a lot of these issues (buses disappearing etc). So that might explain a few things. Strangely, I was in Antwerp for a week last summer and played tourist guide for some friends from Malta and we didn't have a single issue with buses and trams - and we took a lot of them. So you got unluckier than most, or we got luckier. Who knows.

I clearly need to visit Berlin...you also seem to love the detail and work on statues, particularly marble ones. I found that a really beautiful statue can really move me, more so than a painting or a book even. The holocaust memorial looks impressive too.

Any idea what the idea/story behind that massive statue is? It's more of a tableau vivant than a statue almost.

Regarding the massive statue in Dusseldorf, it does have a plaque and apparently describes/commemorates the found of Dusseldorf as an independent city or something. I'll attach a copy of the plaque. Dusseldorf was very rainy and this thing is pretty grimey, so it was hard to read even in person. Plus it's in German, which I can read but am far from fluent in. Anyway, I've tweaked the contrast and brightness as much as possible and cropped it. And then I realized we have the internet. Apparently it was built in 1988 to commemorate the 700th anniversary of Dusseldorf being granted city rights.

https://www.gpsmycity.com/attractions/stadterhebungsmonument-60168.html

Lol, J, I had such incredibly bad luck with trains. I've probably already posted this, but going from Frankfurt to Berlin was without incident. Going from Berlin to Germany, there was a bunch of storms, trains got cancelled, and I was 8 hours late getting there. The bus from Dusseldorf to Antwerp was fine, but then the train from Antwerp to Frankfurt was cancelled apparently because some people stole copper wire. It completely kill all trains between Belgium and Germany and it turned into this all-day affair of taking a train to Liege, then a bus to Aachen, and finally another train to Frankfurt. It was horrible. If/when I come back to Europe, I'll probably just rent a car like a real American. I big SUV. Plus some of the city buses in Antwerp just didn't show up. I had the app and a bus pass and everything. *shrug*

And Ox, yea, I do like a good statue. Especially ones that are kind of crazy. In Dusseldorf, there was a park full of statues of great composers, but they were kind of twisted and their features were swollen. It was really cool. There was also the one in Berlin with the lady with wings and snakes. Apparently she was a witch. But the wings were these awesome bat or demon wings and she had snakes coiled around her. So awesome.

Great pictures! Been to both Belgium and Germany myself but neither of those places. Definitely on the list, especially from your shots.

Still really ashamed of the way "our" public transport screwed you man! You clearly did have bad luck as I take trains and buses regularly on the same trajectories and it's never been that bad for me but it's a fact that there are problems yeah. A lot of it has to do with the continued efforts from the government to push towards the privatisation of these former state companies and force them to be efficient and maximize their profits. That'd be ok if it didn't have an effect on the quality of the service but it totally does.

It's more expensive to travel to the coast in Belgium with the train with a family of 4 than with your own car, and not really any faster either. Same for other longer distances within the country. Most people only take trains because they are convenient for work commuting (city centre to city centre without needing to park your car) OR because they don't have a car at all and need to travel a longer distance than usual. But for the most part the cost makes it so that it's not a viable alternative for a car even if you don't constantly have to travel between different cities. Which is insane. I remember when one of our (neoliberal) governments gutted a bus service which mostly serviced the rural areas for being unprofitable, he said that "those people living in rural areas who sporadically use the bus can use taxis or their own car instead as an alternative". Apparently it didn't even register with him that some people can't afford a taxi or a car...

So now the transport services are stuck in vicious circle:

cut funding/increase profits - less frequent and more expensive services - people take the bus less because it's too expensive or doesn't fit their needs - less profits - government says "look, the service isn't viable because no one is on it. Let's cut some more" -rinse and repeat.

Yea, that sucks. I respect public transport. When I lived in Frankfurt as a teenager, the u-bahns and s-bahns were completely dependable. They didn't always run on a convenient schedule and you might have to do some crazy jumping of one train to another, but it worked great. And actually the buses and trains and Berlin were really dependable when I was there. It sucks it's not the same everywhere. *shrug* It's all good... I obviously had bad luck because Shiny wasn't there with me.

Haha yes.

And well, Germans are probably better at making things run on time anyway. In Switzerland it's even more ridiculous, but then they are a nation of watchmakers.

I think metro systems are the only public transport systems that are actually improving in most European cities. More and more people living in urban centers and more and more congestion, so they offer some unique benefits compared to other public transport systems. They're expensive to dig out/build but they pay themselves back many times over. I remember taking the metro to work every day in Prague and it was amazing to see one roll past every 2 minutes during rush hour. There was really no point running for one because there was always another one right behind it.

They have a sort of light underground rail where I live now and one of the more interesting aspects of it is that unlike many (older) subway systems you can't actually access the rails. There's a plexiglass wall with a few doors in it separating the platform from the tracks, and the doors only open together with the train's doors. That way you can't have suicide attempts or other shenanigans disrupting the services. Here's an example, altho no one is getting on or off so the platform doors aren't opening. But you get the idea.