Saturday 02 September 2023 – Gent/Ghent.
I've struggled with getting the time and energy to write this post almost as much as struggled with choosing and editing some of the 173 photos I took. I (we) had a good time in Ghent/Gent and I'm happy with the photos I took as well, but I'm just knackered and have no mental capacity for anything, again. Work has been mentally draining this past month, and I must admit that I'm not loving this new role either. I've also been suffering from 'tennis elbow' for the past three months and while it's mostly OK during the day, the way I sleep means I wake in the middle of the night in pain and struggle to drop off again. To add to the night time joy the UK has just come out of an autumnal heatwave with the hottest ever recorded September days. So, yes, I've been too tired and grouchy to think about writing, or much of anything else once the day's work is over. However, posts will back up if I don't do something, so here is something.
Eleanor had a 'significant' birthday in July and good friends of ours very generously treated the four of us to a couple of nights in Ghent, and it was a very nice time too. Eleanor and I have previously visited and I still had an OK layout of the town in my head and there were a couple of places I wanted to see again; and at least one gin bar to return too; though my main objective was to get some frittes/fries as we didn't eat any last time, and oh lordy they were good!
We arrived late morning on Thursday and after checking into the very modern and art focused Air B n B, we went off to find those magical frittes, and beer. Only one mind, beer that is not, fries. I ate a lot of those.
We were lucky with the weather, the forecast hadn't been inspiring before we left London, but we ended up with one nice day and once not so nice. The not so nice day, Friday, meant I got some 'cobbles in the wet' photos, which I was happy about, and it also gave us the perfect excuse to visit one of the many bier bars; this one had 366 beers on its menu. We had three. Burp.
Ghent is one of those towns that is just built for aimless walking; there are a few named tourist things to see, castles and cathedrals, town halls and museums, but equally there are just loads of lovely streets with great examples of old Flemish homes and of course 't Dreupelkot, that wonderful quirky old fashioned gin bar.
I even took photos that had people in them.
We found a list of seven modern buildings to see on the internet, just for something different to look for and managed to find most of them, though most of the finding was by accident. These include the new library (free toilets ), the 'Modern House', found in one of the lovely cobbled streets I was photographing, and the Ghent Market Hall.
Though it was the narrow cobbled streets, wet or dry that I was after, and I found plenty of those.
We had a late afternoon Eurostar back to London from Brussels on Saturday so with nowhere to store bags in Ghent we took the 30 minute train ride into Brussels Midi and used the left luggage storage there and went for a walk around Brussels. Our first stop was the Mannekin Pis; it has to be really, its Brussels main tourist attraction.
Last time Eleanor and I were here it was really wet and the square was packed with some event, I can't remember what, this time it was packed with a beer festival, but at least it wasn't pouring with rain.
After a waffle snack (mandatory in Belgium) we took a slow walk up to the European Parliament buildings and then took a train back to the station for the journey home.
It was a fabulous few days away and we really appreciated the lovely gift from our good friends xx.
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