After breakfast back at cafe Mokafe we got ready for our day out in Ghent, first stop back at Central station then onto the train which was a double decker which gave us great views over the country side and half an hour later we were in Ghent. From the station to the old town it is about a 30 minute walk or it would have been if the signs had been a little more visible but they vanished at one stage and we ended up walking the wrong way, luckily Chris had his phone so we managed to get back on track and soon we arrived at visitor information. We went in and picked up a map, we had planned to ask some questions but the people in front of us seemed to be planning a whole tour of Belgium so we gave up and went next door for a drink instead. We checked the map and it has a recommended walking tour which takes in the main sites so we decided that after a river boat trip we would follow that. There are a number of different river boat trips so we decided on one that was 50 minutes long and was due to leave in about 15 minutes so we picked up our tickets and went and sat down by the river until it started. It was actually a really good tour, the guide was very funny but also a local from Ghent so kept making the point that as a local man he was allowed in different buildings to other ‘day skippers’ when Ghent was a hot bed of trade on one side of the river the locals registered their goods and paid their taxes, and on the other anyone not from Ghent had to do the same, although the taxes were higher, they also seemed to have different churches although I rather lost the plot on that part of the discussion. Ghent is on two rivers with a canal that joins the two, if you go in one direction you would end up in Paris and if you went in the other you would end up on Amsterdam! we went past all the main areas of the old town then returned to the start. Then we started following the walk which took us to the same areas as the boat only on land this time. The houses are very spectacular, but also very Dutch looking, they had a fire in the 1600’s when all of the wooden buildings burnt down, rather like London and all new buildings had to be built of brick to avoid that happening again. Ghent is very much like Bruuges, but doesn’t have UNESCO World heritage status, although they do have one building that has this status which is the Belfry, you have to walk up about 80 stairs then get in a lift to get to the top, Chris wasn’t sure if he wanted to do this, but I think in the end he was glad he did as the views from the top were spectacular. You can walk all round at the top then you should take the stairs back down, but they were quite steep and small spiral staircase so as it wasn’t busy we decided to walk back round and get back in the lift to come back down. Having made it up and down we decided we deserved something to drink in celebration so after a stop to refresh and refuel ourselves we continued the walk and ended up back at tourist information. I really like Ghent it is very pretty and much more compact than Brussels, we may even re-visit if we have time. We stopped for something to eat down by the river before heading back to the station, we had originally planned to get the tram back to the station but we couldn’t work out which one we wanted so we gave up and walked, finally arriving back at the apartment about 9pm, a long but really good day.
