Ghent

Our Brussels apartment is a 4 story apartment, which means that we definitely get our steps in, but nicely renovated and nice and warm. We were up for a quick breakfast before jumping on a train to Ghent, which is about 35 min from Brussels. We started our day with a trip to Gravensteen castle. Built in 1180 in the center of the city by a famous count, it is a beautiful castle that is so well preserved, it was just incredible. I think that this has been one of our favorites other than Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany. This time slightly better as no one was lost in the castle toilets:)

Ghent was never really damaged during either WWs, unlike most of the rest of Europe, and the architecture was incredible.
Ghent is bigger than Bruges, so it feels a lot less crowded, which was a welcome change. We had a delicious lunch at Soup’r- a little local hole in the wall soup and sandwich shop that was exactly what we needed after walking around in the cold weather! -1C is very cold for us!
One we were warm, we of course decided to take a riverboat ride, after skipping the canal boat in Bruges. We had a terrific skipper who polled the crowd whether they wanted the tour in French, English or Flemish, and the effortlessly gave the tour in French and English. I wish my brain could do that so fluently!
After a chilly boat ride the kids wanted to sample on of the legendary Belgian waffles! After a false start when we rocked up at Beer and Waffles (great reviews, but sadly, a workshop, not the beer and waffle experience we could achieve that day), we landed at House of waffles instead. We tried both the Brussels and the Liège waffles (former is lighter and crispy, the latter sweeter and more dense) with various ice creams, syrups and fresh whipped cream. All delicious! We walked through the Christmas market and saw St. Bavo’s Cathedral, which was simple but beautiful. We crowded onto the train back to Brussels and had a very late and sort of weird dinner in the apartment. Bedtime now, and we are looking forward to time in Brussels tomorrow!Baca selengkapnya