At the Belgian Crossroads (and to the West a bit)

As I write this I am back in NZ and am ever so slowly catching up on a variety of things, this blog included. Please bear with me.

When we last met, I talked about Antwerp. However, this was only stop one of three in that wonderfully weird country of Belgium where they like to go hundreds of days at a time without a functioning Government.

Stop Two: Ghent

This was a 30 minute train ride from Antwerp and sits very much in the middle of Antwerp, Brussels and the biggest tourism hotspot in Belgium: Bruges. Consequently, it has been somewhat ignored by tourists who tend to bypass it completely. This is rather unfortunate as Ghent is a truly lovely city to visit.

My first night there I stayed in a hostel called Ecohostel Andromeda, which was actually a canal boat. The owners lived on board as well it appeared, were complete hippies and super friendly. We were served freshly baked bread and other organic goodies for breakfast. It was a shame that I could only stay there one night. The other two nights were at a converted Monastery. It was not so good as the building was very tired and the walls paper thin. That said, BEST shower in Europe so I can't complain too much.

The town centre is very medieval though nearly everything you see was constructed around 100-150 years ago. The story goes that Ghent was Dullsville in the late 1800s, so the town mayor decided that seeing as Medieval was 'in' that it would be prudent to re-design the town with this era in mind. His strategy worked as Ghent soon became a popular place to visit.

Some of the highlights are the Castle, called the Gravensteen, which has been there for several hundred years. You can do a self-guided tour, which wasn't too bad. The castle has a lovely history as a place were people were imprisoned, tortured and killed in a variety of interesting ways. There are two churches and a watch tower on the main thoroughfare through the township that one can view. I didn't as they weren't that interesting architecturally. The streets are all cobbled, and a river runs through the town. There are also a few canals around that are quite beautiful to behold.

One rather hidden treasure I found, so described as it was about 15-20 minutes walk from the town centre was a modern art museum called S.M.A.K. I have no idea what that stands for, but I will say this: that museum had some quality work on display. I paid the youth rate too, of 1 Euro, so that made it all the better. I highly recommend it. Two of the more stand-out pieces were a large aluminium S that had a current running through it so it hummed (innovative use of modern materials in my mind); and a room with a disco ball hanging from the ceiling, and holes where the speckles of light would have hit the floor, walls, and ceiling (slightly spooky).

For eating, there were an abundance of restaurants and cafes. But, just out of the town centre and away from the tourist eateries, was Sleepstraat. This is the main street in the Turkish district and it is lined with fabulous Turkish restaurants. When you see the Turks eating there, you know it's going to be good. I certainly enjoyed mine.

Finally, a rather weird discovery: the City Hall was completely restored to resemble how it would have looked 100+ years ago. The locals thought they had it down until someone found a hitherto undiscovered building plan that showed that one of the downpipes was painted in blue and white striped paint. So, what did the Ghentenaars do? Yip, they painted it. The building now sports its own lollipop-look downpipe. It honestly looks sooooo out of place.

All in all, Ghent was a beautiful, somewhat sleepy town but well worth the visit as there weren't too many tourists around the place. Though maybe go during May/June as this is when the 65,000+ uni students aren't there and before the Turks leave for 2 months to go back to Turkey for a holiday.

Stop Three: A Day in Bruges.

One word, actually not really a word but a sound: AAAAARRRRGGGHH!

There were so many freakin' middle-aged Yankee tourists around the place, and the rest, many eating at restaurants that served Steak and Chips which is NOT Belgian food. I got claustrophobic. Don't get me wrong, it is a beautiful town with pretty Medieval buildings and canals and they shot a seriously good movie there. There is even a Church with the only Michelangelo outside Italy (a statue of the Madonna with Child). But DO NOT come here during high season if you have a dislike of large crowds. After a couple of hours I had to find a more deserted part of town, which I succeeded in doing: a river-side park with a couple of windmills and some sun-bathing Belgians. It was bliss on what was a very hot day.

The two touristy things I did were to see the Madonna (if I didn't know it was a Michelangelo, I would have considered it boring) and a trip to the top of the Belfry, which I think a guy fell off in the movie, and also put me off spiral staircases forever. I got so dizzy going up and down. Also, the wait time was AGES!

In conclusion Ghent was a lovely town, Bruges also but the latter was insanely full of people so if anyone ever goes there to visit, bear that in mind. In case you are wondering, Bruges is about 20 minutes from Ghent by train.

After a tiki-tour through charming Belgium, it was off to Paris. But that is another post...