Kanigan Family: A Quick Trip to Ghent

One of the things Dan and I have been most looking forward to about living in Belgium, is the country's close proximity to so many amazing places. We plan to put any and all long weekends to good use while we are here, so for our first "out-of-Brussels" experience we kept it in-country and hopped a quick, half-hour train ride to the well preserved, medieval city of Ghent. Ghent has been referred to as the sister city to Bruges, and though I haven't seen Bruges yet, I can say that Ghent exceeded all of my expectations. It was like a step back in time.
Of course there have been many modern changes in Ghent over the past few centuries, but the city still retains an old feel and has been so well preserved, it's easy to picture how things might have looked way back when.
So, because we only had a day (about six hours to be exact) I'll just run through the little itinerary we followed and then post my favorite pics and be done.

Our train left at about 10 a.m. and we arrived just after 10:30. We purchased the inexpensive coach tickets (10 euros for Logan, Dan and I, while the younger kids were free) and I just have to say that we got what we paid for. Dan ended up standing the entire ride, and we were pretty crowded, but for ten bucks, we weren't expecting much else!

The station in Ghent is about a mile and a half away from the historic town center, so we put our walking legs on and before we knew it, we were there. We found a quaint little sandwich shop and fed everyone before heading first to the Belfy Tower. I was anxious to see the view from the top. 350 step later, we were there. Along the way we stopped at different sections of the tower. One displayed a number of really old bells that were actually pretty cool. My kids enjoyed the medieval urinal we found in the basement (Not currently in use, thank you, although my boys wanted to try!). Just a note, the Belfry Tower does have an elevator after the first small set of stairs.

After the tower's incredible view of St. Nicholas's Church, we headed toward Gravensteen Castle. Along the way, by luck, we came across Graffiti Alley, a little section of Ghent dedicated to street art. It was modern meets medieval and I loved it. There were so many colors and the kids really had a fun time there.

After stopping for fresh chocolates and waffles we finally made it to Gravensteen Castle, which was of course, the highlight of the trip for my boys. We let them wander on their own a bit. Dan and I both love history, so walking down corridors that were used so long ago was magical. I wasn't a fan of the torture room, but everyone else seemed to like it. :)

I am just now realizing how much eating we did because after the castle, we stopped again to eat some fries. It was starting to get cold, but I had my heart set on a river boat ride, so we finished our day off that way and then headed home.

It really was a perfect little day-trip and one that I highly recommend! Most of the museums charge a small fees and children below thirteen were free for nearly all of them. We didn't get to do everything because we ran out of time so we will definitely be back. Here come the pictures!