Ignore the Guidebooks: Choose Ghent
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If you’re wondering why in the world we chose to stay in Ghent for a week, you’re not alone. I heard it constantly in the time leading up to our trip to Europe.
“What’s in Ghent?”
“So do you have family in Ghent or something?”
Or sometimes, to spice it up:
“What’s a Ghent?”
I heard it so much, I started second-guessing myself. I pulled at my lip, studying the map of Ghent’s historic center, that looked more like a spider than a tidy block. Should we have stayed in bustling Brussels or bewitching Bruges instead?
Even the guidebooks piled on. “Ghent makes a nice half-day trip from Brussels or Bruges.”
Well, after about five minutes in Ghent, I understood with a clap of clarity that guidebooks clearly don’t share my travel values.
Here’s what I want in a trip to Europe:
I want a bustling town with people meeting in the street outside cafes and then stopping for a beer together. I want to be jammed cheek-to-jowl in restaurants beside locals who probably consider this restaurant their neighborhood haunt. I want to be swept away by architecture, imagining what it would have been like to walk these streets a century ago, or two, or three, or ten. I want to peer in windows of butcher shops and I want markets selling local fish. I want to be surrounded by free-flowing conversation, even if I don’t understand a word of it. Especially if I don’t understand a word of it. In short, I want to experience something vital, something vibrant, something new.
Apparently that’s not what guidebooks want for me.
They want me to have the opportunity to have professional photographers stop me, offering to snap my photograph in front of a shiny building, as if I’d never figured out the selfie-feature of my phone. They want me to carry bags emblazoned with names of stores I can find in my home country. They want me to have my choice of souvenirs made in China. They want to make sure I have a bevy of air-conditioned museums to visit. They don’t want me to worry about fumbling with language, English will do just fine! They want to make sure that should I lose my guidebook, there are fifteen people in arm’s length carrying the exact same one.
So when travel “experts” tell you that Ghent makes a pleasant half-day trip from Brussels or Bruges…ignore them.
Ghent, quite simply, knocked my proverbial sokken off. It started with a bang and didn’t let up for an entire week. Within two minutes of leaving our apartment, we stumbled on a cobblestone street with a canal running behind it, a band playing something akin to French jazz while children danced around with their parents. No, I am not making this up, See for yourself.
Live music in Ghent, Belgium
I posted the video in my Instagram stories and got a flood of messages. “THIS IS GHENT?”
This is Ghent.
And it only got more ludicrous from there.
I consider myself a bit of my wordsmith (she says, midway through working on her tenth book. Or is it the eleventh? I’ve quite literally lost count) and yet WORDS FAIL ME.
So I’ll need to refer to the galleries and slideshows in this article.
Part-way through the first day, I realized even still photography failed me. You need video, preferably with smell-o-vision, to capture the scent of caramelizing waffles as you walk a canal in the shadow of Dutch Gothic architecture, passing locals clinking glasses of frothy beer, like they are in some sort of hybrid of a fairy-tale and a beer commercial starring people with teeth far too white.
You need a video (again, preferably with smell-o-vision) to capture the bustle of the weekly flower market (garden flowers for planting in the middle, cut flowers around the perimeter) with the municipal band playing Coldplay and an oyster stand that’s been coming to the market for freaking ever—serving up briny oysters and champagne. All around, tables littered with bags of ice, the neck of a champagne bottle peeking saucily out, surrounded by a tumble of baby bottles as the owners of said bottles toddle around their parents’ legs. The taste of those oysters lingered. Maybe we need taste-o-vision, too.
We shopped at Bookz and Booze. We had a beer at Barrazza, a cafe on the water with a resident cat. Often, apparently, the cat makes the rounds along the steps that create a terrace down to the water (seen below from across the canal). When we visited, she was in her box by the register.
We had lunch at Pakhuis, a former warehouse made of glass. We had dinner at De Stokerij, a former distillery. We had a particularly astonishing meal (with Belgian wine! Who knew!) at Mémé Gusta, a restaurant set up in a cozy, vintage setting—like the owner’s grandmother’s home, only I’m pretty sure no grandmother on earth has ever made fries like that. With duck confit bitterballen (a meat and gravy-filled appetizer we fell in love with in Amsterdam).
We perused used books along a canal and I picked up a 1904 Baedeker on central Italy for €10. We had a drink and ate chocolate and played scopa at Ray, a glass pavilion built against the outer wall of a soaring cathedral; though we couldn’t visit the cathedral itself, since it mysteriously has no entrance. We wandered the spectacular graffiti alley, while a man strummed a guitar (video at bottom of page). We took a boat tour down the rivers and canals of Ghent, learning and laughing with our darling captain.
We visited one of my favorite art pieces in the world, Jan Van Eyck’s altarpiece, Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. Funnily enough, it’s that piece that first brought me to Ghent as I backpacked through Europe as a college student. Even more funny, on our first morning in Ghent, I had Keith and Gabe read my old journal entry about that long ago visit (I’d put it up on my blog), and Gabe realized I’d written it 31 years ago, to the day. Funniest of all is that I’m adding this detail in while editing because I just remembered it—that bit of serendipity was the least special thing about our trip to Ghent.
We tasted the local liquor, RoomeR with petals of elderflower floating dreamily within. I had a spritz made with RoomeR at ’t kanon, one of my favorite bustling watering holes, tucked into a cozy half plaza with a view to the water. We admired local mustard sold right out of a barrel, in a shop next to a tiny, wonderful bakery with a line of locals snaking out the door.
We drank beer at de Dulle Griet and sampled a few of their 500 Belgian beers. We drank beer at Dragòn, with its 30 Belgian beers on tap (many hard to find ones from our a list of recommendations a chocolate seller had jotted down on the back of receipt) and delicious sausages which the nice Belgian man at the next table helped us decipher. My seventeen-year old son who is old enough to drink beer in Belgium loved the dark brews with challenging hops. Which gives me comfort. Not many an American keg are filled with dark Belgian beer made by monks. Hopefully we ruined him for Bud.
We shopped at a flea market in the shadow of a greying cathedral and when I bought earrings, it turned out the vendor (a high school teacher on weekdays) had been to Charlottesville! We had a wonderful few minutes getting to know him and meeting his family. (PS, I also “shopped” for murder implements ideas, always sleuthing for my cozy mysteries set in Italy!)
We tromped through Gravensteen Castle on a rainy day. The castle itself doesn’t measure up to the grand specimens you can find throughout Europe, and it lacks the furnishings and decor that offer a glimpse of old Belgium. But Gravensteen Castle is IN the center of town, so you pass the moat when you’re going to dinner. Better yet, the audio-guide is narrated by a Belgian comedian who lives in Ghent. This meant each room was filled with stories of people, told in a fascinating way that had us all cracking up. I half-wanted to go back on a sunny afternoon. Next time.
We feasted on fries and waffles and mussels and waffles and steak and waffles and chocolate (we found the boutique chocolates in Ghent far better than the big five chocolatiers in Brussels—maybe it’s hard for a boutique chocolatier to get a foot in the door in Brussels?) and yet more waffles and cuberdone, a kind of candy only found in Ghent. I sipped a speculoos latte and thought my heart might burst with happiness.
But those moments paled in comparison to the night we walked across town after our dinner at ‘t oud clooster (in a former monastery, which the menu pays tribute to in winking tongue-and-cheek fashion) and found that it had rained while we’d been cozily tucked within. The lights of Ghent flickered on, making an already enchanted waterfront so ridiculously beautiful we alternated cracking up and snapping photos and gesturing wildly to each other—do you see this?
And everywhere, the backdrop…these buildings. Again, I can’t describe them, so I’ll refer you to my photos. The buildings have crumbled a bit over time, worn around the edges, some soot caught in the creases…all of which add to their appeal. As you walk past the former fish market you cannot escape the awareness that Ghent’s heyday was the middle ages.
Strange, though. We lived in an Italian medieval town for two years and those middle ages do not at all resemble Ghent’s middle ages. Short and squat is how I’d describe medieval Italy. Soaring and elegant is how I’d describe Ghent’s, which is actually not all that different from Amsterdam’s. Makes sense considering they were all once part of the Netherlands.
I started thinking, maybe this is just Belgium, man. What an underrated country (which, for the record, it is). But then we went to Bruges. Now I should say that we’d planned to go to Bruges all along, but we went on this specific day because I’d booked us an airbnb experience. So we took the train and then a bus and walked the prettily scrubbed streets to arrive at The Silver Hand where Richard threw open the door and must have cast some kind of spell because we fell instantly in love with him.
There were four other people in the group, just lovely individuals, we really enjoyed getting to know them. Richard gave us each a strip of silver in line with the style of ring we envisioned for our rings, and then taped the piece down and we stamped the inside. Then he showed us how to mold the ring into a round and he welded the ends together (he let Gabe weld his—what a memorable treat—because he heard Gabe casually use a welding term; high school robotics has a real life payoff!). Then we polished and hammered the rings as we preferred. Yes, I knew we’d come out of a ring-making experience with rings we made ourselves, but still it seemed a minor miracle. On our way to lunch, we kept stopping to hold up our hands, admiring the way the sun glinted off the silver.
Until we got caught in some sort of current of tourists that swept us along past a very grand grand place and down some streets until we arrived at a spot for lunch. After which, we walked a little more past buildings that looked so pristine, it felt like they were recently built. They’re not, of course. But still, I couldn’t escape the feeling that we’d somehow plunked down into a kind of Flemish Disneyland. I don’t think I saw that many tourists in Amsterdam, maybe because Amsterdam is bigger so the tourists can spread out a bit.
bruges belgium
Much like when we arrived in San Sebastian after staying in Bilbao, I announced in short order that I was ready to leave when everyone else was.
They were ready right then. We hightailed it back to Ghent and breathed a sigh of relief at the now familiar bustle and energy of this university town.
No knock on Bruges. it was cute, for sure. The throngs of tourists sure seemed to like it (I was able to get some nice photos before the tours descended, as you can see). But after lunch, we started to walk around and all I could think was, get me back to Ghent, where the people are real and the architecture isn’t polished within and inch of its life.
a blessedly quiet morning in bruges
That said, it’d be worth going to Bruges another time, off-season. I watched in Bruges (great movie if you’re okay with a greater than average amount of violence) and suspect there is much more to this little city. So I’m willing to be wrong about Bruges and will happily go back.
Maybe as a day trip from Ghent.
PS We did also go to to Brussels for a day and I love the city but since we’d spent time there in the past, it didn’t have the WOW factor of Ghent. We essentially repeated all the greatest hits from our previous trip there. Not for the first time, I was so thrilled I have a blog so could remember those greatest hits to repeat—Nordzee, Mort Subite, the Museum of Musical Instruments, and Fin di Siecle. Read my old post (with new updates) for details!
Where have you been that surpassed your expectations? Where did you go that fell short? Leave a comment and let us know! And if you want to have stories like this in your mailbox once a month, sign up for the The Grapevine, my newsletter with book reviews, recipes, and giveways. First giveaway? You get an e-copy of Santa Lucia, my bestselling novel set in Italy, FREE, just for signing up! Imagine that! In moments, you can be swept away to sunny, mysterious, beautiful Italy.
Graffiti Alley in Ghent, Belgium
