Jan 4th - What to do today to top the adventures from yesterday?? That's an easy one...since this is our last day in Ghent and we haven't actually seen it during the daylight hours, we're off on foot to have a look around.
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| Royal Dutch Theatre |
Ghent is certainly a beautiful city - seems like I've said this before about a city or two...but the architecture is impressive and it's an easily walkable city so we can take it all in. There are two quarters to the city (a piece of mathematics that doesn't quite add up to me) - the arts quarter & the historical quarter. Our hotel is in the arts quarter where there are a lot of museums, but is only about a 10 minute walk to get to the historical quarter, and that's where we going to explore for the day.
We headed towards the Castle of the Counts to go inside & take a tour...passing many beautiful buildings along the way - the Belfry that is a prominently tall tower seen from almost anywhere in Ghent, the Royal Dutch Theatre, St. Bavo's Cathederal, and a funky building that I loved because it had these cool dancing figures on top - I looked up later and found out it is the Masons' Guild Hall. We also stopped for some pictures from St. Michael's Bridge that has great views from all 360 degrees.
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| The Belfry |
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| Masons' Guild Hall |
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| Castle of the Counts |
We made it to the castle & went inside to wander around the self-guided tour. I think we got to see just about every inch of the castle & up into one of the towers for some great views of the city. The castle had lots of displays of weapons & torture devices, some which gave me the willys :) There was also a replica of a guillotine - the blade was an original though, eek! A big part of the history of Ghent is that there was much animosity between the inhabitants of the town & the rulers. Back in the 1500's, the ruler at the time forced the inhabitants to parade through town barefoot, wearing only white shirts and nooses around their necks as an act of public humiliation for thier disobedience against authority. Today, the noose is a symbol of pride in the city & the nickname of people who are from Ghent is "stropkes" which means noose-wearer.
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| Inside the Castle |
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| View from the Castle |
After we finished up the tour, we were off to find a bite to eat...we decided to try out what seemed to be Belgium's answer to McDonalds, I think it was called Quick. The verdict, I'd take it over McD's any day :) On our walk back through Korenmarkt square, we found plenty of places selling waffles, so I did get to have my Belgian waffle fill...it was a tough choice between Nutella or plain sugar waffle, but I settled on the sugar waffle...oooh, it was yummy!
Last stop for our daytime walking tour on the way back to the hotel was at St. Bavo's Cathederal. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside which is too bad, as it is beautiful and massive (there are more than 20 altars). We took it all in on the main level and also down in the crypt before heading back to the hotel.
We had a fairly quiet last night in Ghent, found another great spot to eat - Rob had a chance to try out the chicken waterzooi which is a local dish - it was kind of like a chicken & vegetable stew with a cream based sauce. Our final stop for the night was into one last recommended beer bar, The Trappist before heading back to the hotel to get organized & packed up for hopping on the train in the morning.
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| Ghent |
New Beers for the day: Maes Pils, Ciney Blond, Ename Blond
After we finished up the tour, we were off to find a bite to eat...we decided to try out what seemed to be Belgium's answer to McDonalds, I think it was called Quick. The verdict, I'd take it over McD's any day :) On our walk back through Korenmarkt square, we found plenty of places selling waffles, so I did get to have my Belgian waffle fill...it was a tough choice between Nutella or plain sugar waffle, but I settled on the sugar waffle...oooh, it was yummy! 
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