Ghent

Ghent, like Maastrict, delivered much more than we expected it to!

We arrived in the afternoon to the Bird's Nest apartment, which was great and perfectly located, right in the the thick of the old town, shopping and also in amongst a sprinkling of amazing bakeries, cheese and wine shops!. After a wander to get lunch we saw the Xmas markets and brought the kids back in the evening to check them out. By unanimous vote, we went on the huge ferris wheel - which was actually quite freaky especially when we were stopped, teetering for a while, at the very top...  

 

 

 

After that, dinner was bratwurst and souvlaki from the markets.

 

The next morning Bill set off to do an honest day's work catching up with some suppliers. The concept of work was a shock to both of us... I went for a morning run to orientate myself,  then had a lazy morning with the kids. Later we went to see the Belfry church with the dragon at the top and climbed the narrow winding staircase to get to the top....

 

 

 

Then we wandered through the markets, where the kids insisted on the Xmas tree ride - who would have thought that would still amuse them... 

 

Next we went to St Bavo's cathedral to see the famous masterpiece - the Ghent altarpiece called the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb by the Van Eyck brothers. This is said to be arguably the most influential painting in history and also the most frequently stolen artwork of all time. Despite the big raps it was extremely underwhelming because much of it is being restored off-site and the parts we could see were pretty limited - entry was into a small box filled with tourists on audio guides - we stared at a single panel which was there but only lasted about 10 mins in there!

After that we wandered through old Gent until we got enticed by the smell of waffles and the offer of free hot chocolate. We ordered waffles which was a meal on a plate, smothered in banana/nutella for Amelia and strawberries/nutella for the rest of us...

 

Then we navigated ourselves to the famous graffiti street which looked closed off from either end, but thanks to a tip from a passing old man we managed to get in through some gardens just up the road, where we had it all to ourselves except for a french photographer.... The only rule on this street is that the street artist are supposed to respect art which is better than their own. Harv got a new app called Prisma which turned our photos into their own works of art...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Home to chill for the afternoon & later when Bill got home we went out for a quick beer and even got some Xmas decorations having had the great news that we were able to rid some gear by sending some stuff home thanks to his suppliers!

 

The next morning, we dealt with some final admin to pack up the boxes and deliver them to Bill's work contacts, dropping me to the dentist for a check up on the way (amazingly my dentist from Maastricht happened to be working just out of Ghent today...). Once that was sorted, we had a final look through the markets & bought some bananas and strawberries covered in the finest Belgian chocolate. Then it was out of town on the road for our final leg to Amsterdam...

  

Amelia says; Ghent was really super cool because it was one of the most medieval cities that we went to. Our house was really nice and the lady who owned it was really nice too. At the markets there was a store that sold chocolate bananas and lots of other chocolate-covered fruits. We got one on the last day: I got a banana, Harvey got a marshmallow and Zoe got a tray of chocolate covered strawberries. They were all TDF.  We went on 2 rides in Ghent - the first one was the ferris wheel and the second was the Christmas tree ride. My favourite was probably the ferris wheel but the Christmas tree was also really fun.

Harvey says: I really loved Ghent because of the medieval architecture. Also because of the graffiti street, the ferris wheel and the amazing Christmas markets. We went on the ferris wheel at night so we got an amazing view of the town with all its lights on. The apartment was really cool too. I loved the Belgian chocolate there as it was a good change from the Austrian goulash but I was still missing bitteballen from Holland. 

Zoe says: My favourite part of Ghent was that our apartment was so cool - it was 3 whole storeys. The only bad thing about it was that mum and dad were really far away from us as they were on the bottom.  I just loved the waffles cause they were covered in nutella with fresh strawberries on top - we couldn't even finish them!