Four years ago, my family and I tried to go to Gent, sister booked a private city tour there, unfortunately when the time comes no-one replied us back. Plus the weather was predicted to be gloomy, rainy, windy and all of their friends joined together. In the end we decided to stay in Brussels, which leads me to another mission four years later to fill in that trip gaps!
Helene told me about some protest from the trains that is happening in Belgium. Intercity trains will stop operating for 3 days. Here comes the cherry on top, which dates it will be? on the date where I planned for Gent haha instead of one full day staying there, I had to cut it short to only half day trip.
Had there was no protest, for sure I’ll do Gent City Walking Tour in day time and Gent Horror Walking Tour in night time with some spooky story! sounds interesting ehhhh…. well, maybe this gaps will remains open until I fill it in again in the future 😉 #challenge accepted!
I arrived around one hour before the Walking Tour started. What should I visit? had no agenda at all, googled “attractions in Gent”, screenshot the pages one by one, made my own list, let’s move!
I want to see the oil painting called “Adoration of the Mystic Lamb” it’s located at the St. Baafskathedraal. Good! two attractions in one. Went in to the Baafskathedraal, walked around, walked once again….hmmm… where is it? saw a corner to another side of the Kathedraal, there was locker seems you can’t bring anything inside, put my stuff there, went to the entrance door heyyy! you need to pay haha 12 Euro! hell yeah, ain’t gonna pay that! skip skip skip, failed to kill two birds with one stone.
For some reason I wanted to visit “Huis van Alijn” this house was formerly a children hospice, its says there are some photos and videos that are really emotional. Found that place, however I was too early, they haven’t open yet.
I went back to the starting point for our walking tour with some stops for pictures time 🙂 #snap snap click click
Then our walking tour time is up 🙂
Our tour guide has the softest voice that could ever exist in this world. I didn’t meant it to be bad just simply unbelievable. We started the tour by seeing 3 towers Gent could offer from St. Baafskathedraal, Belfort Tower and St Niklaas. Then we went to under the bridge…from the appearance it seems so old, in reality not even 100 years old haha #appearance can be deceiving to the fullest. Around this bridge we can enjoy the view of “Big Ben” which btw it does looks similar, good job Gent people!
She said something about the oldest building in Gent now is Manhattan Burger #definitely a nice way to remember history 😉 In the middle is the Tax office, it is small because they don’t want to pay big tax for big building, make sense! Everything needs to be count down to the pennys.
Next we walked in front of the fortress that never became a real fortress apart for one time and one time only where students able to manage to get in into the Fortress, threw everything they had at home like rotten vegetables, eggs etc to the police because the governments wants to increase beer tax for students haha it’s not happening bro #priority!
So what was that Fortress then? it was once a cotton mill, once also treated as a prison. However not every prisoners serve a long time there because there is a square literally in front of it and in that square is the life of prisoners ended either to be hanged or however way to die at that time of centuries. But now that same exact square who took out life became a square where they celebrate life. When the baby at the main hospital was born, the lamp post will blink.
Continued walking until we found a fountain that I really like! the bottom is for cats and dogs, then is for horse, next is for people on the top is for birds aaawww very lovely ehhh Gent make sure all get drinks, all included! From this fountain you can see there is also a building who looks like a skull, that used to be aaarrghhh I forget…. hospital? butcher? haha anyway something spooky happened too hiyyyy
We finished our tour in City Hall, it is one same building but finished in two different style 🙂 I noticed there is also an Indonesian participant on the group, talked to him when the tour ended, we went to Vrijdagmarkt to have a beer… wait! its not just a normal beer but a beer that has bicycle design, not my luck! the place is not open yet pfffff maybe save it for filling the gaps in the future too 😉
Our tour guide recommended to go up to Belfort Tower, it has elevator, you can see the view of Gent and it costs 10 Euros. Will do! I got a closer look to the dragon, don’t think it will looks like one in Game of Thrones or one in Goblet of Fire, to my eyes looks like a Dumbo but I’ll leave it to your imagination 😉
……glaaaaaadddd that I did! the view from the top is top!
After visiting Belfort Tower I didnt have much time left so we just strolling around the same route from the walking tour. Thank you Edwin for the company!
Still remember the Manhattan Burger + Tax office building? Well there is more to it! its located at the Canal per se, on the other side of the canal or with other words on the opposite side of the Tax office is now a Mariott Hotel. There are two swans statue on the wall but they are not facing each other…. do you know why? haha! Please imagine it, in the past when all the sailors comes to Gent, first things they do is pay taxes, what a horrible way to start. Moving on, what could be the second things to do after they leave the Tax office? Look at the sign please, swan to the left is for beer, swan to the right is for XXX rated, yes people Mariott hotel used to be a brothel haha Sorry to all people that stays there.
I dont think they should ever remove the “not facing each other” swan statue 😉 Cute ehhhh!
