Germany and Beyond: Belgium: Ghent

As we set out to explore Ghent we stumbled across a cool antique store just down the road from our apartment. It was enormous and they they had everything from toys and collectibles to vintage furniture. Upstairs they'd created small living spaces using the items for sale. Although we would have loved to take so many things home, unfortunately we just had to settle for browsing.

Towards the main train station there are bikes as far as the eye can see. It's great so many people ride bikes; guys and girls in work attire, hipsters, children, tourists - everyone rides bikes in Europe.

We walked along the river before heading to the city centre. With so much rain the water level had risen and was pretty close to many of the entrances of the buildings that lined the canal.

The cathedral below was not too far from our apartment. Ghent is a great city to walk around in. With all of the cities having a main square there are lots of walking streets near by and it's nice not to have to compete with traffic.

The main square in Ghent was probably the least impressive of the four cities we've visited.

The city did however have a really cool old castle built in 1180 with a great museum inside. They had a room filled with torture instruments and very clear instructions how they were used, including diagrams. While it was a little bit gruesome it was also very interesting. In one room was a replica of a guillotine with an original blade used at the castle - I hope it wasn't always as blunt as it appears to be now. The dungeon was completely restored to it's former glory including a square room where a prisoner would wear a choker with metal spikes inside the collar. The prisoner would stand in the middle of a room with four cables extending from the choker to four corners of the room. He would be made to stand perfectly still until eventually he would fall from exhaustion and the spikes would pierce his neck. Ick.

Gravensteen Castle

The castle is still partly surrounded by the moat

While entry included a free video guide, it was possibly the most drawn out, worst acted and seemingly irrelevant history of the castle. It changed between the actors being briefed on who they were to a scripted conversation about the Queen's breasts.