We set out in Ghent to explore new breakfast options. We landed at O’Yo Healthy Foods on one of the many town squares where they specialize in all plant-based foods. I had a chia pudding bowl which was a welcome change from our mornings of French pastries.
Once fortified we headed to the Belfry of Ghent – a large bell and clock tower with the best views of the city. Ghent is known for its iconic skyline that includes three large towers – the Belfry, St. Nicholas’ Church, and St. Bravo Cathedral. We really enjoyed going up in this tower. It was completed in 1380 and is the tallest Belfry in Belgium. It now provides an elevator up and very, very narrow steps down. On the way up you learn about the history of the building, including seeing the original dragons that previously adorned the spire. The views from the top were amazing. On the way down we stopped to see the various bells and the carillon cylinder. Our timing was perfect to see it play. It is incredible to think how the clock tower and bells ringing at specific times changed life in the middle ages.
After our skyline viewing of Ghent, we hopped on a tram to the train station for a 25 minute ride to Bruges. As we did in Ghent, we grabbed some lunch and then met up with an afternoon free tour of the city. The guide was engaging and provided a lot of historical information about this beautiful town. A couple of great things about the walking tours are you not only get to see some of the main sites, but also some of the out-of-the-way places you wouldn’t know about. Our tour included the Princely Beguinage Ten Wijngaarde which is a lovely secluded group of homes and abbey that has provided a safe place for women and nuns to live communally for over a thousand years!
Our tour pointed out two breweries, so we decided to be good guests and visit one. We took a brief audio tour of the Bourgogne de Flandres brewery and had just settled into the taproom to enjoy a flight of beer when it started pouring rain outside. While I finished sampling beer, Karen quickly dashed out to buy some cheap umbrellas. This purchase worked. The rain stopped, although we learned that the weather can change quickly in Belgium.
One thing we learned about Belgian beers is that each one is served in a unique glass. A bar or restaurant would say it is unthinkable to serve it in any other glass. If the bar does not have the correct glass available, they apologize and do not serve the beer. At 2be Bar there is now an infamous “beer wall” which displays over 1,000 Belgian beers along with the corresponding glass. It was fun to look at all the unique beer glassware on display. Although tempted to buy a few, Karen limited me to just one as a souvenir.
For dinner we then found a little restaurant to try the local specialty, moules-frites (steamed mussels and french fries). Karen enjoyed the mussels while I was given a lesson on how to debone a fish.
The comments we heard about Bruges being very tourist dependent were true. By 8:00 pm when we finished our dinner, most tourists had left, shops were closed or closing, and Bruges returned to being a very quiet little town. We followed everyone else. We walked back to the train station for a quick ride back to Ghent with a plan to return the next day.
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