Antwerp: The Water View Floatel. Diamond Princess Flotel.

Where to spend the night, when the cute, smaller places near the old town are full: Try a floatel. A fine vintage one is the Diamond Princess, Bonapartedok, Antwerp. A flotel.


Fair use thumbnail from www.channels.nl/20585-el.html/

We stayed in a cabin on a converted Norwegian cruise liner now permanently moored in the docks area, called Bonaparte dok (after Napoleon - looking up what he did here). See the docks area at www.ontoeurope.com/features/2005/mar05/antwerp. This may be becoming a museum dock. The ship is the Diamond Princess and it dates from the 1950's. See it at //travel.webshots.com/album/46573935PPAdXt. Breakfast restaurant included. Excellent choice. See www.hotels-belgium.com/antwerp/diamondprincess.

Plan to spend more time in Antwerp than in Brussels. Commercial, like Brussels, and cosmopolitan, but also more walkable, and with active navigation and big castles. Much destroyed in WWII, but also much reconstructed. See Antwerp overview at www.trabel.com/antwerp; and its history at www.trabel.com/antwerp-history. Trabel means travel, if you do a search on that.