Ghent, Gent or Gand - Great and Gracious

If you want a perfectly preserved mediaeval city, don't look for it here. Go to Brugge. Ghent has not gone through a sort of static time warp like this. The splendid buildings along the Graslei cover a spread of many hundreds of years. The city has had two separate periods of preeminence as a textiles centre, and the Industrial Revolution turned the water colour to "golden." Ugh! Tourism has probably done it a favour in forcing a general clear-up of the waterways, and their complete restoration will take years yet.

I would not claim to know Ghent properly - or any other of the main cities of Flanders - but having seen at least something of all of them, I rate it as favourite so far.

This may be partly due to the outstanding location of my accommodation - but so what? Everywhere is as you find it, and for me, Ghent was one of the top spots.

Quick Tips:

Take a bit of time here if you can and soak up the atmosphere a bit. This is a "real" city, and there is no great divide between people going about their daily lives and the magnificence of the great buildings. Wander away from the three great towers of Ghent and you are in busy and interesting shopping streets almost before you realise it.

Plan a bit as well. The two museums I write about were not what would have automatically have taken my fancy, had I not done some reading. The city's main museum of ancient art was closed for repair, or I should have been there as well.

I regret missing that and also the Gravensteen [too much up and down for me] and the Beginhof [sheer carelessness on my part.]

I stayed two nights and should have extended my visit if the room had not been taken.

Best Way To Get Around:

The tram is the obvious method between the station and the city centre. A fairly small area with the three main towers, the Stadhuis, the Graslei and Korenlei and the Gravensteen is easily walked, and should be many times - don't miss seeing it floodlit.

This might not be quite what you think of as a typical B&B but I loved it. The Brooderie [bakery] is now mainly a cafe but they do still bake most of their own delicious bread and cakes. Upstairs on the first floor there is one superb large B&B room as well as the toilets [one each for the sexes and they are shared with the café's customers.] There is also a good shower which is not shared with them! On the second floor there are two more rooms of which I had the smaller, although it had a double bed and adequate space for two people.

Now for the plus points and there are two mighty ones:
1] The location. The most magical waterside buildings in Ghent are on a road called the Graslei but they are best seen either from a boat trip or from the Korenlei opposite. At the bottom of these two riverside routes is St Michael's Bridge from which the best known view of the three towers is seen. At the top are the boats - on both sides by the next bridge. Jan Breydelstraat is a continuation of the Korenlei running up to the Gravensteen and the Brooderie backs onto the Leie, a canal running all the way to Brugge. At the front it is immediately opposite the Design Museum. The most expensive room is only €55 [mine was €40] with breakfast included and I don't think it would be possible to find a better location in all Ghent.
2] The Breakfast. It is of course a continental breakfast - though a boiled egg is included. I have definitely never had a more enjoyable breakfast of this kind anywhere. There were three kinds of bread, all very tasty, cheese and cooked ham and jam. Then there was one slice of a wonderful cakey type bread with fruit and nuts.

In short, if you can't stand the thought of sharing the toilets with the café customers in return for these advantages - - GREAT - - more chance of my getting in next time!

I usually take a database of cheap eateries with me IN CASE I can't find anywhere reasonable - in Ghent I found the one place I had listed and did not realise it until afterwards.

This is very much a Flemish place with good local items. The à la carte items are much the same price as other restaurants but the menus are really good value, not one whit worse in terms of quantity, quality or accompaniments than the same items à la carte.

Vegetable soup, Gentse Waterzooi of fish, an ice and coffee cost me €16. This was one of about six menus which ran from €14 to €16. However there was one even better bargain available the first night but sold out the second which was called 'Menu of the day' as opposed to menu! It consists of a soup for the day, the plat du jour, ice and coffee for under €10 or just the soup and main dish for under €8. That night it was vegetable soup followed by steak and a mushroom garnish and, honestly, it was really top quality.

Add to that the fact that it is ideally placed for a walk round the main floodlit buildings and, as the saying goes, 'Bob's your uncle.'

Design Museum sounds boring, but is far from it. The Brooderie, where I was staying, is directly opposite so I could hardly fail to be aware that the building itself is a mansion.

It is actually an eighteenth century building and was no doubt occupied by a wealthy family. Rooms have collected furniture from the seventeenth century onwards and remind me slightly of the period rooms in one of my favourite museums, London's Jeffrye Museum. In the Ghent museum the old kitchen is a wonderful display of carved wood extending even to the chandelier.
There is an extension which shows some art nouveau and art deco furniture and artefacts. I was lucky that there was a temporary exhibition on cutlery through the ages--I should never have made any effort to see something called that but the articles of cutlery with their lavish use of precious metals and of ivory were really quite something.
If there had been a very, very highly commended rating for some of the other Ghent places, this one would have got 'very highly commended', but it can't quite be classed with them--but it really is good!

I have just looked at Linda Kaye's account of this trip and in particular at her experience of weather--what luck. I thought it was precisely what I had managed myself--it had been a gloomy day and now the sun was out BUT it probably was clearing but there was one truly mighty thunderstorm to come before it did and guess where we were--no prizes! Umbrellas were issued and the driver tried to give us shelter under a bridge! Even so it was most informative and even enjoyable, but I did feel a bit naked next morning in completely unmenacing sun.
The trip lasts abot 40 minutes and is confined to the Leie River and the Liève Canal to Brugge, which joins the Leie at the top of the Graslei/Korenlei. The part of the Leie beween the Korenlei and the Graslei is the ancient harbour of Ghent and thus the buildings on the Graslei were of immense importance, but they do not all belong to a common age as in Brugge. Rather they are separated by hundreds of years. The oldest of them was built in about 1200 and is the Koornstapelhuis from when Ghent had the staple in corn and it all had to be stored here before sale. Adjacent to this is the minute old customs house. Other guild buildings were those of the Free Boatmen, the fish measurers, the grain weighers, and the masons. Incidentally the other side of the river is far more humbler with the hospices.
Near the bottom end of these two roads where the boat turns back is St Michael's Bridge and fro just before this the famous view of the three towers is to be seen, which are in order ST Niclaaskerke, once the belfry of Ghent, then the actual Belfry, and lastly the tower of Sint Baafskathedraal.
Further up than the starting point the boat follows the Liève canal a short distance to the wonderful Gravensteen castle of the Counts of Flanders, who were always concerned to establish practical independence from the French crown to which they were nominally subject. Then it continues to see some religious and old industrial buildings. Lastly it returns to the junction and goes up the Leie for a short distance to see the [still in use] abbey.
A fine trip and a fine commentary.

Talk about places not to go. A museum with four themes as follows sounds high on the list: the cycle of life; free time and leisure; crafts and trade; religion and popular beliefs at the start of the twentieth century. It was only the fact that it is set in lovely old buildings (which were erected as eighteen almshouses in the fourteenth century and at least part was later used as a children's hospital) that got me in. The thing is that once in the place is a delight.
I was pleased to accept the offer of one of the curators to 'explain a bit' as most notices were only in Dutch. The route itself is a tad confusing as the barriers between the houses have been removed so that you go right along the top of one building, back along the bottom, across the very attractive courtyard into the chapel, out of the other chapel entrance, and then a repeat performance of the first two activities in another building.
It would be possible to stay a very long time as the whole place is simply packed with interest. The craft rooms showing different aspects of daily working life as it was are fascinating but perhaps predictable. Less so sre the children's games and, in particular, the section on beliefs. I was horrified and fascinated at the same time by an article I have not seen elsewhere, a tool for baptising a foetus in utero if there is a significant doubt about its survival.
Also fascinating were the old bridal articles. There was an easy way for a woman to turn down a man's proposal without the need for words. He would present her with a mould for making biscuits or cake with a man's shape. If she did not want him, she had merely to break off the legs of the confectionary. Women who did get to the church for marriage wore black (no comment) but it was made beautiful and interesting by the hand insertion of hundreds of beads.
Enough, I am rambling, but don't let the title put you off!

The most used view in Ghent is that of the three towers )Sint Niklaaskerke, the Belfry, and Sint Baafskathedraal) taken either from Sint Michielsbrug or, even better, from the end of the Korenlei below the bridge.
However let's start at the Stadhuis (city hall). The only thing which applies to all of it is that it is grand and ornate. It was a long time being built and various very different architectural styles can be seen on different façades ranging from flamboyant Gothic to Rococo.
Sint Niklaaskerke tower duplicated its role with that of City Belfry when it was first built in the thirteenth century. It has undergone considerable restoration fairly recently and is well worth a look, but how could such a large church and the cathedral ever have functioned so close together?
Why do they not find it worth while to let people know that the belfry has a lift? Admittedly you have to reach the first floor to use it and that's a long way, believe me! Even so it does allow many who could never dream of going up all the steps to see the splendid workings of the bells inside and the magnificent view outside. These belfries, of course, occupied a wholly lay funtion of watchtower and alarm point.
And so lastly to the cathedral. It is somewhat overshadowed outside but on entry its true magnificence is revealed. I can't say I really go for the immense pulpit made of marble and carved wood but you could hardly fail to notice. Unlike Antwerp, there is no charge for entry to the cathrdral but you do have to pay to see the most famous object in the place, Van Eyck's altarpiece (now nowhere near the altar) or 'The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb.' I have to admit that I didn't go in. All the crossing and genuflection made me feel out of place, but it is possible to see the superb quality of the art work from outside the actual area.