Travelling Sophie: Mechelen, Part 1! :)

Today, I went traveling in my own neighborhood, Mechelen. Mechelen is a cool city in Flanders, the Flemish ( Dutch) speaking part of Belgium. This glorious city lies 25 km north of Brussels & 25 km south of Antwerp!

Mechelen is famous for many things! It has a smaller city centre, so that you can do everything on foot or on a bike! ;) You can find many different cool clothing shops, foodie shops, great cafés, cool coffee bars. We have great museums, lovely restaurants, old buildings with a lot of history in them, great hotels & we are also friendly people! :) We, Mechelaars bike a lot.

It looks cosy, right? De Yzerleen is a square where you find many cool cafés, lovely coffee bars & cool clothing shops. You can also find here a good cheese shop, a good butcher, etc.

The lovely multi-clouted flowers that represent the colors of the flag from Mechelen!

I was walking for a while & I needed a cool mixed juice to pep me up a bit. I went to De fruitbar, Adresse? Onder de Toren, 2800 Mechelen. Open?Monday till Saturday, from 10 am till 5.30 pm.

The fruitbar is very small & I didn’t find it cosy at all. So, I didn’t take any pics in there. You can choose between mixed juices, all freshly prepared, in front of you. The woman who owns it, uses a Blendtech! :) Most mixed juices are vegan! You can also choose smoothies, with a defatted yoghurt. You can also boost your juices if you want. I love the cool names for them too. I chose the Acai Special! Just look at it. It was very tasty, refreshing, cool, not too sweet & very filling too! I chose a medium one. It costed me 3.50€.

I drank it under the famous Sint-Rombouts Toren. ( Sint-Rombaulds Tower!) This huge tower with added church is very famous. Mechelen has many older buildings that are an UNESCO world heritage site. We also have de Sint-Rombouts Toren. (St Rumbold’s Tower in English ) The 97-metre tower became the symbol of Mechelen.

Building work by the Keldermans family of architects on this imposing Mechelen monument began in 1452. Times and circumstances changed and as a result the tower was never completed.

The city’s most important documents used to be kept in this fortified tower, which was also the belfry. The bells in the tower served to tell the townspeople the time and to sound the alarm in the event of danger. The tower also made a good vantage point: from here you could see the enemy arriving from a long way off. Nowadays, you can visit the skywalk. There is no elevator, just a long array of steps! But it is worth it! On a good clear day, you can see the port of Antwerp & the skyline of Brussels! A skywalk visit will cost you 8€!

The famous Sint-Rombouts Toren!

After this refreshing drink, I walked further in my beloved town.

Lovely!

This is on the street between de Yzerleen & de Grote Markt! After a while, I was getting hungry & I thought, I will stop here & have some food!

Le Pain Quotidien is a bakery & you have a commune table over here & normal tables too where you can sit, relax & have a bite to eat. This famous bakery has spread all over the world. But its origin is Belgian! Yes!They have 16 Le Pain Quotidien in Belgium. Adresse? Yzerleen 15, 2800 Mechelen.

Most of the produce they make here is organic & of very good quality! I read about Le Pain Quotidien, that is in Los Angeles, that they have a large vegan food section. In this spot here in Mechelen, they serve a few vegan food dishes since begin February 2014. So, I thought, I am going to try them out. This is what I chose.

I chose a large Bio café latte with organic soy milk. This was 4.20€. That is a lot of money but I find that this is the best soy café latte in town! I received an organic dark chocolate with it! Yum Yum!

You can choose between breakfasts, lunch items, lunch suggestions, tartines ( these are open-faced sandwiches, but on real organic wheat bread slices, all home-made.) All of the breads, they make here, are vegan. They only use organic flours, water & salt! They serve a large variety of coffees, café lattes, teas, home-made ice-teas in Summer, fresh mixed juices or smoothies, lovely koffie koeken, buns, chocolate mini breads, tartlets, cakes & buns. You also can eat salads, evening suggestions, you can eat outside or inside. This bakery & eating area is very large. There is even a sitting-dinig area upstairs for parties!

On the list left of my coffee, this is the list where you can find out what is vegan. Vegan food items, are listed with a carrot in front of them. ;) I looked on the list & will give you a few things that are vegan & how much it cost! In every section of the foods, there is only 1 or 2 items vegan. There is a lot more vegan in the breakfast area.

A bowl with fresh fruits, a small one: 4.80€, a bowl with fresh fruits, big: 6.80€.

Bio rice pudding with soy milk or/and apricots: 4.80€.

A bio muffin: 4.10€

I took the vegan lunch tar tine of the day: Just look at it, doesn’t it look so delicious??

It was just so delicious, but you could add a lovely tasty salad with this, but I found that these side salads are way too much for me. The dressing in the side salad is not normally not vegan though!

MMM,..It was. It costed me 9.40€. I will give you some inside pictures of this famous bakery!