Antwerp Has a population of 536,079, with the largest metropolitan area of 1.2 million people, next to Brussels in size. The port is second to Rotterdam in Europe. Hosted the Summer Olympics in 1920. First settlement soon after the Year zero, Was once the sugar capital of Europe, importing the raw commodity from Portuguese and Spanish plantations on  both sides of the Atlantic when slavery was in fashion. Soon thereafter in the 1500's became the richest city in Europe. The Reformation religious revolution erupted in Antwerp with violent riots in 1566. Suffered during World War II. Starting in the 1990s rebranded itself as a world-class fashion center emphasizing  avant-garde clothes. So I joined the beer tour. Belgian pale ale is the pride of Antwerp.  Gained fame in the Liege exposition of 1905. Best known is De Koninck. As expected, was led by my Blue-bar Pigeon. Another kind of bird. The Cathedral of Our Lady (Antwerp) began construction on 1521, and at a certain stage, was the

For the past few years I've been tracking which would reach 3 million first, my United Airlines Star Alliance account, or this blog site.  Well, yesterday this site passed 3 million viewers.  The United miles were stymied by the pandemic, then during the past couple of years I've turned to other airlines for convenience and the simple fact that United miles are almost useless these days. Further, 221 "countries" have visited this site.  Surprisingly, while, as expected, the USA is #1 with almost half the readers, Singapore is second at 15.3%.  There are only 195 countries, but 243 "countries" when you add Antarctica, various islands and territories.  Twenty-two of them have not clicked on this blog.  If you know anyone from these sites, please ask them to ping on my blog: Country     Visitors   1. British Indian Ocean Territory 2. Central African Republic 3. Chad 4. Christmas Island 5. Comoros 6. Falkland Islands 7. Guinea-Bissau 8. Kiribati 9. Montserrat 10