Today, we jumped on a train and headed over to Ghent.
It was raining when we left the hotel but since the train station really wasn’t that far away, we figured we’d still just walk over. With the directions plugged into EDP’s phone, we were soon standing in front of something that seemed suspiciously like the train station, except the phone said we still had 7 minutes to walk. So we went inside. And then we were standing inside something that looked suspiciously like a train station. So we bought ourselves some tickets and headed towards what we figured were tracks. We were right - and quickly realised the official entrance for the train station was way on the other side, hence why the phone thought we should keep walking.
We had just missed a train to Ghent by a couple of minutes so we had time to go and get the world’s most disappointing hot chocolate (from a mix! THE SHAME!) and okay-ish croissants before finding ourselves on a train. After only about 20 minutes, we were making our way out of the Ghent train station, towards our sites for the day.
We started at Sint-Baafskathedraal, with it’s stunning stained glass. Annoyingly, people were completely ignoring the multiple signs showing no photos so I got pretty grumpy pretty quickly. I don’t understand why people insist on so blatantly ignoring such a simple request - so disrespectful. I left my grump behind as we headed over to the Belfort to see the views of the city. We took the long way up, climbing the stairs (only 350!), stopping to learn more about the history of the tower on the way up. I particularly enjoyed getting to see one of the old weathervanes. The tower is always topped with a dragon (that can shoot REAL fire - last time it went off was 2018, though) and one of the old dragons was on display. It was incredibly windy at the top and I’m a chicken at the best of times so I didn’t last very long.
Then, it was on to find Vrijdagmarkt, the Friday market. We arrived as some of the non-food vendors were starting to pack up but the food vendors were all still in full force. That’s likely because they weren’t set up with tables and tents but rather enormous trucks that they just needed to drop the sides down and roll on outta there. The cheese and meat and seafood and produce was everywhere and looked SO good. We grabbed a couple of pastries (a large custard danish for me and what appeared to be the world’s best Boston Cream donut for EDP) and then wandered up and down the market aisles watching vendors close up shop for the day. I long for this kind of market to go to every week in Canada. St. Jacobs comes close but it’s almost too large. This market was the perfect size - a couple of different choices for each of the things you’d need to pick up and everything looking amazing.
With the afternoon’s rain still holding off, we opted to head to Gravensteen next and hold off on lunch for a bit. Gravensteen was delightful. We were given “family friendly” audio guides to take us through the castle but both EDP and I wondered if kids were getting a different version because ours didn’t shy away from some pretty adult language & themes. The castle had been almost entirely restored and we got lots of great detail about the Count who built it (Philip), his first wife (Elisabeth), the death of her lover (see - adult themes!), their deaths, etc, and got to see the first chimney in Belgium!
Finally, we stopped for some lunch - for some reason, I was put in charge of picking somewhere and frankly, I did a terrible job. I’m pretty sure I’m banned from restaurant selection for a while. While we were tucked away in the restaurant, it began raining, which put an end to our canal tour plans, so instead, we started heading back to the train station where we definitely got caught in some pretty heavy rain. We were able to duck into an entryway for the worst of it so it wasn’t too bad but it was still nice to get a hot chocolate once back in Bruges - both to warm up and to forget about the first one of the day.
With such a late lunch, we held off on dinner for quite some time, finally deciding to just grab a waffle from our new fav, House of Waffles. They were already closed up for the night but we were able to get one from the window, having a delightful conversation with the fella who ran the place. He got very excited when we said we were from Canada, telling us he really wanted to go to Canada one day and see the Mounties. But it’s hard for him to get time away from the restaurant so it probably won’t be for a while still. The waffle wasn’t quite enough for EDP so we went on a bit of a quest to find some good fries, finally getting to a place called the Potato Bar, where EDP got some very tasty fries and a little croquette.
Now, we’re all packed up and ready to head off to Izegem tomorrow morning to start our time with my mom’s side of the family!
