Ghent, Belgium

Posted on December 26, 2023  •  12 minutes  • 2546 words

The location of our Airbnb was amazing. 1 block to the castle, 2 blocks to the Christmas market while walking over a bridge and by so many cafes, restaurants and shops.

As before, didn’t stay long, just dropped our stuff and headed out. We needed food and just the little we saw walking from the wrong tram stop, we were already loving it. And Dan had met a family the day before at the part and they said we’d love Ghent. Dan found a highly rated frites shop so we walked there past a cute square, of course decorated.

Turns out a lot of people thought is seemed like a good idea, but we were able to order and find 2 little rickety tables to put together outside. They took their sauces serious here. I almost got sauce everywhere as I opened the tap just a bit (or so I thought) and it came guzzling out!

I got the Turkish Delight to share with Ben, Dan and Tara got the beef stew (all of these over frites) and Sam and Max got chicken tenders. It wasn’t enough food, but we survived.

With no plan, and no rush as we were supposed to have nice weather a few days, we wandered along through the Christmas market. We did this a lot, but to be fair, it was hard NOT to. The center of the towns/cities are not huge and the markets are, so they are kinda everywhere.

And if all the decorations and festivities weren’t enough, just a perfectly adorable backdrop behind the market stalls.

We found a building with odd statues on each of the front roof facade points. This is not a technical term, just made up.

Dan had done some research on what to do, so he lead us to the belfry. The kids were given a booklet with information and hints/tips on how to find the dragon’s egg…and they had to hurry because it was going to hatch soon! If they took a photo of it and brought it back to the ticket office/store, they would get a prize. Ben was determined. We started out in the old cloth hall. Nothing too special about the building, but the floor was a maze. We started by trying to not cross the lines, but we were seriously never going to get out unless we did.

The dragon’s relative that was missing the egg. Rumor had it that this dragon was taken from Constantinople, but most likely not. Sort of a mascot for the belfry.

Ghent takes it’s bell tolls seriously! Every 2 years the citizens (and non-citizens maybe) of Ghent get to vote on the melodies that will play at each quarter of an hour. More research is being done it we can join in on the voting! Until Easter of 2025, Bohemian Rhapsody is played at the 3/4 of the hour. We went into the room with the giant rotating drum, with it’s pegs that are connected to wires, that are connected to the hammers in the bells above. These pins are changed manually every 2 years for the new melodies. Basically I giant music box.

We made it to the top and had extraordinary views in all directions.

Zero space outside and kinda crowded, so we made a loop and headed down.

Typical steep concrete spiral staircase.

Each ‘stop’ on the tour, or each room, had a page in Ben’s book and another clue. Ben was diligent, but still no dragon egg, but I wasn’t worried yet. Maybe I should have been as I promised we wouldn’t leave until we found it. I think Ben was expecting a big prize…the edible kind.

And PHEW, we found it! Back in the cloth hall, out one of the windows. The last hint was a selfie the egg had taken. I bit hard to follow at that point. :)

The kids all got dragon pins, really cool actually and Ben and Max wore them proudly. I think Sam gave his to me, only to be found (and worn) by Dan 3 days later. We left feeling good and walked straight into a Santa band, because why not?

We hadn’t done much, but it was late afternoon, so we went back for our afternoon relaxing. This turned into an intense game of Uno.

It became dinner time and without food in the house, we decided to grab something easy at the Christmas market. We go there and nothing sounded great to anyone. I think we were craving some veggies and were only finding meat, grease and beer. We got beer and pretzels, but it wasn’t going to cut it. No one was really happy.

We split up…Dan and Sam got dessert to go, Grandma and Max waited on the corner and Ben and I went to the grocery store for dinner. To say I was craving fruits and veggies would be an understatement. When we walked in, there was a section with fruit juices…the kind with no added stuff, just the fruit and sometimes veggies. I bought 4! And one I got as a full liter. We also got lots of apples, cucumbers, bell peppers, smoked salmon, cream cheese, breakfast stuff, buns and what I thought was veggies soup, but turned out to have scallops in it.

We got home and I started opening juice after juice and we all were gulping them down. All of us, except Ben who said he wasn’t feeling well. Never threw up, but didn’t eat dinner. Poor guy missed out on the salmon he picked out. Yeah, the rest of us ate both packages.

So it turns out the ‘milk’ I bought was buttermilk, so that won me the opportunity to go to the store again in the morning to get baking soda and flour (and REAL milk) so we could make pancakes. The last AirBnb had a waffle maker, but this one didn’t. :( Not too painful, as I walked back past the back of the castle. You can really tell the ’no kids with me, I’m chill’ smile vs the ‘Real smile please! Come back! Can we take one nice picture please?’ smile. Pure bliss here on my morning errand.

Slow morning, especially with the 8am + wake ups, and the pancakes. We walked the block to the Gravensteen castle and Dan stood in line to get tickets. It was timed entry, so we had about 30 minutes to kill before we could go in. I had been wanting a good coffee and right there in the basement was a pop up restaurant for the holidays, serving coffee and beer that time of the morning. We got us a table by the tree and enjoyed our coffees with behaved children.

I keep commenting on how well decorated every where and everything was, but the castle won the non-existent competition. Over the top! Every room had something. We hung out in the bitter cold (but not raining!) while Dan got us the audio-guides.

All loaded up with our audio guides, we headed along the route. More decorations.

I have never had an audio guide tour of a castle before and this one was nothing short of amazing. Do I dare say, maybe the best of all audio guides? Informative, but usually all are. What stood it apart was the fact that it was hilarious at parts. I kept hearing Dan laughing out loud or seeing other people chuckle to themselves. It started with the narrator talking about how one would attempt to get into the castle and all the obstacles one would have to pass; for example: boiling hot oil raining down on you. He then compared it to the things people worried about back then vs what he worries about in present day, like when he found the expiration date on his yogurt was today, so does that mean it’s still good today or did it go bad yesterday?!?! I’m doing it no justice here, but it really was funny and kept you totally interested in all the interesting things he said before worrying about yogurt expiration dates.

We continued along, Dan still laughing, to part of the basement which was decorated with trees that had stuffed owls all in them.

In this room, the narrator invited you to sit in a window seat (but not if someone is already sitting there he pointed out!) and imagine gazing into your partner’s eyes, then went on to talk about Phillip of Alsace and his relationship with Elizabeth. Kids didn’t get all the jokes and Ben was questioning why he would be talking about yogurt, but they loved being able to have their own thing and enter the number of the recordings.

Like I said, not a room with decorations.

I think Max has said it before, but this was ‘for sure the gigantic-ist sword’ he has ever seen! ‘See! Even bigger than Dad!’

In the room with a lot of the swords and other things displayed in cases, there was a ‘wishing tree’. A tree where you could write a wish on a card and hang it.

Would it even be a castle if there wasn’t a nice lookout at the top?

Back inside and making out way through more rooms. I’m always fascinated by the roofs.

Max, Sam and I got a bit ahead, mainly because Sam was taking zero breaks in between the audio recordings. It wasn’t a giant castle actually, and the perimeter of it was still fully intact for us to be able to walk the full circumference, minus a little bit.

Max loves selfies with me the most or maybe he’s just the most agreeable to them.

And how could a funny tour be that funny without talking about the toilets? Here there were 2 holes/toilets so, according to our guide 2 people could chat while doing their business. And this would not be embarrassing because the people below could not see the faces of the people pooing and the people talking while pooping together can’t see the butts, so all is well. He went on to explain that this made sense, to have the poop fall below, so all the common folk could see the aftermath of all the expensive food the king was eating with their taxes. I highlight for Sam on the tour!

Walkng back to the start, we passed a significant green roof…there were trees on top!

Done with the tour and we went in search of food. Dan found a great place that also included a nice walk along the river.

As we walked in and saw the food on people’s plates, we knew Dan had picked well. Maybe too well, as there was no space. Without wanting to wait too long, we set out thinking we’d just find a close place. More cute streets to walk down.

We walked past a meatball place and I made the executive decision to go in. We were going to be hitting hangry critical soon. We waited for a table, at a table, and the waiter explained to us how it worked…6 meatball options and then with salad or mashed potatoes. We ordered, were moved to our table and were soon served amazing meatballs…GIANT meatballs! And super bonus, they served tap water! No more wasting glass or plastic bottles.

Back at our place and Max was looking very cute in his new sweatshirt from Grandma for Christmas and his very European jeans…which he insisted on wearing thermals under. They were very tight!

Dinner at home, bedtime for kids and then Dan and I went out! Straight to a bearhaus! One thing I love about bars in this part of the world is when you order a Bolleke, you get it served in a Bolleke glass. When you order a Vedett, you get it in a Vedett glass. No mixing and glasses for every beer type you have. Maybe this isn’t true, but I’ve never found it not to be. US bars just don’t seem to care. No issues whatsoever to put a Hoegarten in a Fat Tire glass. Blasphemy!

And another round because they had 2 white beers and I needed to taste them both.

On the walk home, we took the long way back so we could walk through the market and get a waffle. A waffle that I only had to share a little of. :)

The next morning Sam and Max were both struggling with listening, so Ben, Tara and I went out. I had seen ‘graffiti street’ pop up on google maps, so we headed there…it was only about a 5 minute walk. It was a small alley that was had every inch of the walls (and some above) covered in graffiti. Some was writing, but some was very cool art. We walked through enjoying it quite a lot.

As we made it to the end, Ben asked to walk back through again. I said we would after we checked out the abbey, but then Dan called and said Max was ready to be picked up. So Ben got to walk back through.

I left Ben and Tara at a cafe while I grabbed Max. Came back to Ben very proud of his hot chocolate choice (I guess there were 4 options) and a cappuccino for me.

And the cafe had a nice graphic to explain the difference between a Liege and a Brussels waffle. Sugar bomb does sum it up well. Oh, then add more sugar on top in the form of chocolate and/or whipped cream.

On the way out. It’s hard not to stop and look.

At this point, Dan and Sam were ready to meet up. We didn’t have a plan but were by the cathedral, so we peaked in to see the stained glass, but there was a service and really couldn’t see much. Dan had to wrap up grading, so we bid adieu to him and the rest of us set out to a park. Along the way we passed a giant metal sculpture. I don’t know what it was for, but it must have been important. The time create this thing seemed unimaginable.

We made it to the park and the kids went right to it…doing their thing. There was some sifting of sand, carrying sand up on a broken chair, just to be dropped down from the netting, running around looking for ‘stuff’. It was great to see them just do their thing. Tara and I managed to not freeze, but about 45 minutes in, I gave them the 5 minute warning. I did warm up a bit by spinning them on the spiny thing.

The walk would have been a bit far, so we hopped on the tram, that when gotten off on the right stop, was very convenient. Lunch at home and afternoon cards with Max.

We had a big travel day the next day, so we pretty much didn’t do much the rest of the day. Another park in a different direction, so saw some new streets.

And a beautiful sky on the walk home.

Dan did laundry and got take out pizza for dinner. All good choices and the pickles on the one were a hit for everyone!