WEDNESDAY IN GENT - AUGUST 10, 2005

Wednesday was a beautiful, sunny day, although the wind was quite cold at times but perfect for our trip to Gent. It was a lot easier to visit Gent, even on a weekday, than Antwerpen. For one thing there is a new tunnel from Zeeland that practically halves the distance from here to just over 70 km. This tunnel is so new that our navigator doesn’t know about it, so for the first time we were not only “off road” but while actually in the tunnel we were “off map”. I don’t want to sound ungrateful but for a new tunnel it really looks old. Maybe they ran out of money to paint it or thought that as long as you are going to travel six and a half kilometers in a tunnel it might as well be dark and dingy with dim yellow lights. Still I remain amazed that it is even possible to dig a tunnel under a river. I thought about it while we were driving through and realized I have no idea how it is done. But then I don’t know how planes manage to stay up in the air either.

In spite of my worries (Frank doesn’t worry about things like this) we had no trouble at all finding a really good parking place not far from the center of town. It was even cheap, the only drawback being we had to buy a new parking ticket every three hours. This added to the other miles that we walked but I’m not complaining. It could have been a lot worse.

Gent is not exactly what I expected. In fact, at first I was a little disappointed. Although much of the center of town is car free, there is parking on the square next to the town hall. This has become rare in old German towns as it impairs the image of medievalness. And the square in front of the cathedral is not a good subject for postcards. I don’t know if there was a lot of damage to Gent during the war but there are a lot of newer buildings in between the old. And in general Gent is quite a hodgepodge of styles, best seen in the town hall.

                                                                              
The town hall - this is one building from different periods. I should have had a closer look at that striped pipe.
I'm not sure whether it is functional or trying to be decorative.

As usual the first thing we did was head for the information center and book a walking tour of the town. Just as in Antwerpen it was scheduled for 2:30 so we had a little time to look around and plenty of time for a nice lunch. Because we had been told that our tour would not include the cathedral we went there first to have a look.

                                                                                                               

                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               

The cathedral in Gent. Gent has a LOT of churches.

                                                                                                               

It’s Gothic with a lot of late Gothic and Rococo on the inside. There is a Rubens painting and a very famous alter piece by the van Eyck brothers, but we only saw the photographic reproduction because there was no indication that the original could also be seen for a fee, which we found out later from our guide. At least it was full sized so we got a good impression of what it was like. In general the cathedral was too ornate for my taste.

We found a nice looking Italian place for lunch and both of us were more than satisfied with our meals. I know it might make more sense to eat Belgian in Belgium, but aside from French fries, which seem to be served with every meal, I’m not sure what that would be.

                                                                              
                                                                              
That's Frank's rucksack sitting on the chair.
                                                                              
                                                                        Our tour of the town began in the town hall and the crass mixture of styles on the outside continued on the inside. The floor in one of the rooms was interesting as the tiles formed a labyrinth, but not just for fun. People were sometimes sentenced to a pilgrimage to Compostella and if they couldn’t afford it or had too many dependents they could substitute a trip or two through this labyrinth on their knees. Our guide assured us that when on your knees it was not possible to see the plan so that it was like a real maze. My poor knees hurt just thinking about it.

                                                                              
                                                                              
The goal is the small square on the right next to the white shoes.
                                                                              

After the town hall we walked around town and our guide showed us some lovely places and interesting buildings. I particularly liked the old “meat house”, which in the middle ages had a monopoly on all meat butchered and sold in the town. It has recently been converted into a showcase for products from the region and there is a restaurant that only serves such products. For example, they serve coffee because it is brewed in the area but no tea. Too bad we didn’t know about it before we had lunch or we could have had an authentic Belgian meal. There were dozens of hams hanging from the rafters, which at first didn’t look real because they were smoked and glazed with honey, then waxed to keep the flies away. This gave them their artificial appearance, but there was nothing artificial about the price which was on the same level as Parma ham from Italy or Seranno ham from Spain.

                                                                              

There was a little window off to the left where poor people could buy bones and leftovers.
                                                                              

The most scenic part of town is along the river where there are a lot of cafes where you can have some Belgian coffee or try one of the hundreds of locally brewed Belgian beers and watch the boats go by, which is exactly what we did later.

                                                                           
                                                                            
It's probably very nice to take a boat ride, but the boats were awfully crowded.
                                                                            

But first we walked through some of the shopping areas. One whole street was obviously geared to the under 30 crowd so there was no need for us to tarry. In another street Frank was very pleased to find a Snac where he spent a happy half hour browsing through their classical music selection and I sat outside on a bench reading my book and carrying on a very friendly but rather stilted conversation with my bench mate who was waiting for his wife. Stilted, because neither of us spoke the other’s language. He was interested in the book I was reading, Seabiscuit, and in the end we arrived at the adjective “spannend” (exciting), which sums it up pretty well. It’s nice when so much good will can be conveyed in so few words.

So our day in Gent was a success. We might even have to go back on Sunday to have a look at some of the museums.