Day 8 - Ghent, Belgium

Day 8 - 4th May 2017

Right after we left Bruges, we took the train which goes the same way towards Brussels and stopped by at Ghent.

Ghent is a town that is very similar to Bruges but less "famous" thus less tourist, which we quickly noticed. As we stepped off the train, we had trouble buying tram/bus tickets from the ticket machines. They were not in English! And most of the machines looked faulty! And they only take coins! We tried to ask the locals but they don't really know how to operate the machines as well as they usually have their own local transport card, and it doesn't help when the instructions on the machine has faded, thus they couldn't read and help us!! We ended up queuing to ask the attendant at the Information Counter but that took us almost 30 minutes waiting for just one customer in front of us. After all the hoo-haa-s, we finally managed to get our bus ticket and took a trip to canal side of Ghent.

We stopped at a little square (forget the name) and began to explore!

Ghent was indeed a more quiet town compared to Bruges. Maybe it was due to almost late afternoon when we reached, thus the huge tourist crowd has left. We fell in love with this little town immediately!

We also spotted the famous Shoe Bar that you have to give up your shoe as a deposit for your beer that serves in huge test tubes. Don't worry, they don't hang it there but merely put it in a basket and raised it to the ceiling. You can only get back the shoes when you emptied and returned the test tube glass.  

Halfway through exploring and admiring the town, we spotted a street food stall that sells escargot! Well, it was just a few Euros for one big scoop (around 30 pieces) so needless to say, MeiChi and I tried it. Although served in a paper plate, we enjoyed them so much! MeiChi actually went back for second round later, and had the whole serving for herself!

We were joking that these escargots are caught at the seller's backyard, since fine dining escargot wont be so cheap! Hahahhaa

Of course, we had to stop at Graslei and Korenlei for the picturesque view of Ghent. We even decided to have dinner along the beautiful view of Ghent.

We passed by Sint-Michielsbrug, and walked up the bridge.

And also walked passed Sint-Niklaaskerk, but didnt manage to enter the gothic church as it was already late evening.

Another thing beautiful experience was we managed to be there during sunset and it was a lovely sight to see a cultural place like this slowly turned dark.  

Het Belfort van Gent - highest belltower in Belgium

Rare photo of two of us! Thank you stranger for volunteering to help us to take this photo!

Sint-Baafskathedraal Gent

We left the place by taking the tram, which again was another problem because the one and only ticket machine near to the tram stop was a little faulty (the tourist queuing in front of us lost his coin in the machine without getting a ticket), and there were no counter for us to buy from. I can't remember if MeiChi and I ended up got lucky and got our tickets from the faulty machine, or if we risked taking the ride without ticket, but we managed to get to the train station and took our ride back to Brussels!  

And that was our last ride using our Rail Pass! All 10 slots fully utilized!  

I think in total we only managed to spend around 4-5 hours in Ghent, but it was still worth a visit! No regrets!


***to be continued

Read all about :

Day 1 & 2 in London - here.

Day 3,4 & 5 in London - here.

Day 6 in Antwerp - here.

Day 7 in Brussels - here.

Day 8 in Bruges - here.

Day 8 in Ghent - here.

Day 9 &10 in London - here.