Things to See and Do in Ghent, Belgium...
It’s a bright sunny day, but rain is forecast. We’ve gotten a late start, but head downstairs and across the street to Brussels Midi. The leaderboard shows the next train to Gent Sint Pieters (Ghent Saint Peters) station leaves in five minutes at 10:26 am. We board and there’s plenty of room, probably because it’s a Sunday. The train feels fast. According to our petite lady conductor, the commuter trains hit 160 kmph…
From the train somewhere before the town of Melle, we see a Boeing 707-321 - Republique Populaire Du Benin sits tailless mounted above some building roofs. Apparently it’s used for parties. Not sure how it got there.
Gent Sint Pieters (Ghent Saint Peters) station looks like a castle, complete with crenellations and a tall watch tower.
Like Brugges, old Gent was a circle surrounded by water. Now the old rampart site is partially a greenbelt. The station, located at 7:00 pm on the circle, like Brugge’s station, is just outside of this. So we walk north by north west along the main arterial to the town center named Korenmarkt.
We’ll spend the day within a few stones throws of Korenmarkt, a largely preserved medieval/renaissance town center seemingly unchanged or barely changed in eons with a much larger city surrounding it.
Our first visit is to the vast Gothic Sint Niklaaskerk (Saint Nicholas Church). Lovely!
We meander back through the Korenmarkt and then a bit north. Groote Vleeshuis, (literally Big Flesh/Meat House), the 600-year old vast A frame butcher’s hall is now an indoor farm to table restaurant on the Groentenmarkt (Vegetable Market Plaza). A few dozen patrons seem to be eating more or less the same thing, plates with meat and veggies on them, like it’s a farm to table kind of place. Later we’ll learn that this was the ONLY butcher’s market in Ghent, while across the canal was the main fish market.
We go two more blocks north, turn right, and find ourselves in the Vrijdagmarkt (Friday Square). This plaza is wider than Venice’s Saint Mark’s and open at all corners. So there is more visual flow. At the east end is a tall tower and behind it Sint Jacobskerk (Saint Jacob’s Church). After window drooling at food in different restaurants for a while, we settle on veggie platters at a Turkish restaurant named Gok on the Vrijdagmarkt (Friday Market Plaza).
Next we visit Gravensteen Castle. Belgium was badly affected in World War I. Like in France, it’s common to see plaques on walls commemorating the dead of each parish. There is one such plaque across from Gravensteen. Each has 10 to 20 names. Occasionally auxiliary plaques add the names of the World War II dead.
Gravensteen Castle is a real gray stone medieval castle with crenellations, a moat, ramparts and a tall keep. But it’s unusual in that it doesn’t sit on a hill or dominate the city. It kind of just exists, non-chalantly, like a really big house in the midst of other buildings. One happens upon it rather than hiking up to it.
The lawn outside behind it has people relaxing, sleeping off too many beers or just having a romantic picnic. We have time for neither, so we pay admission: 10 Euros, which includes an audio guide with comfortable headphones. Narration is by a very funny comedian. He talks about how if you were invited to enter the castle, you were an honored guest, but otherwise, you had to get over the moat and then fight your way past the outer walls, through the courtyard and then finally into the inner keep, all accompanied to sound effects.
We spend an hour or so there, from the top of the ramparts down to near the oubliette, and then we head out into the adjacent Sint Veerleplein (Saint Veerle Plaza). Veerle lived in the 8th century and is the patron saints of Ghent. Unlike many other saints, she was not a martyr, but instead lived to the ripe old age of 90! There is a saint for practically everything, and she’s the one for difficult marriages and spouse abuse.
Sint Veerleplein is more modest in size than Korenmarkt, etc., but it is surrounded by numerous guilder buildings. We step into a corner beverage shop. A man standing in line with his adorable granddaughter in front of us tells us in English about local beers and the Spa sparkling water. It’s delicious. The little girl pays the shop keeper and then later runs over to give him a kiss. The shop owner is his son-in-law and the little girl’s father.
Eighty feet away is one of the tour boat stands atop the Klein Vismarkt Bridge over the Leie River. The short cropped blonde young man at selling boat tickets is congenial. “Your Dutch is good,” he says, though it’s not. What he really means is “thanks for trying!” Regardless, it makes my day. He goes to Florida every year, so he’s kind of like us, but in reverse.
We’re on the boat when we start noticing cloud puffs rolling in. That’s our warning that we need to start wrapping up the day. The temperature is dropping and the wind is doing the opposite.
Even then, we walk quite a bit more. We walk along the Leie River/Canal as it curves south, enjoying the big flower boxes along the railings, the people dangling their legs, walking their dogs, enjoying their beverages and snacks and socializing, the boats plying up and down the river, people at the outdoor restaurant seating and so much more. The Gothic architecture is amazing.
