Ghent

We both really liked Ghent. Its a university city so its full of students on bikes. Really full. There are literally bikes everywhere! Its also like a huge real Bruges. By real I mean lived in. Not that people don’t live in Bruges, but it doesn’t feel like it, its like walking around a huge museum. Where as Ghent feels like a working, breathing city.

Its full of canals, ponds and gardens.

And ducks. Sometimes also found outside of the gardens! Just after we took this picture she proceeded to cross the road, startling many drivers and almost giving me a heart attack!

It has an actual castle! Its pretty small but still impressive. We where going to go inside but it was expensive and we weren’t mad about seeing a torture museum…

The Use-it map really hypes up the street art in Ghent, every street with graffiti is marked with a little spray can and they go on about how arty the town is. Needless to say we had expectations. Not massive ones, but we expected to see some good stuff. Especially on the street where its “tolerated”.

Said street:

And the photo makes it look better than it is! Just tags all over the place, some aren’t even attempts at looking good. Its a real shame, I have always thought that given the space and acceptance street artists can thrive and beautiful walls are the result. Not that it doesn’t work elsewhere that is. I wonder if its so bad here because its right next to a school so there is no respect and people gave up on making an effort. But thats not really an excuse either.

But it was enough of an excuse for us to persevere. We decided to trek to the industrial area across the bridge to see an abandoned factory which Use-it suggests as the perfect place to begin a graffiti walk featuring some of Belgians best street artist.

What a…..shame! At least there where some ok ones but nothing extrodinary. Hardly worth putting on a map!

We gave up on street art and went to the textile museum instead. Its a cool muesum, and only costs 2€ for under 25s. There is a good balance between general Belgian life through the ages and the evolution of textile production.

The only trouble was that the English guide was a bit out of date, it referred to parts that must not exist any more and left out others. But it wasn’t too bad on the first floor. But in the other floors had a different layout, more random, instead of a set path. One floor was kind of interactive with personal messages placed next to objects or pieces of writing describing working during the industrial revolution. Matching what goes with what was so dificult, and some stories seemed to continue through the exhibition… Its not the same looking through a book for the information…

Davids highlight:

We couldn’t really get a good photo because of the reflection from the glass, check out the jelly mould though! If you can spot it… And the piping bag!

We reached the end of the production of cotton as we know it!

On another note: 17th century hot chocolate ROCKS! Its tiny (my cup) but so incredibly delicious! David had a mixture of white and dark chocolate, a bit too sweet for my taste, his super cool mug kept it hot for so long we strated using my empty one to scoop bits out!

We walked to the various towers of Ghent… This one had just been through 50 years of renovations.

This one is paired with the controversial modern barn.

And this one will have to be for another time.

We where both pretty tired and decided to head back to the train station via the red light district – We had never been to one and were curious. I already knew I wouldn’t really like it, but it was horrible! So sad, all these beautiful girls, probably my age, behind glass. Well, for sale! Some just sat on stools, others chatted together, some made an effort and danced others just smoked and looked bored. I couldn’t look any of them in the eye, I could hardly look at all. A bit of a downer to end our day on…