[ ITINERARY · THE DISPATCH ]

Two Days in Ghent: The Belgian City That Finally Gets Some Credit

Ghent has been quietly one of Europe's best small cities for centuries, while Bruges got all the tourists and Brussels got all the meetings. Two days is enough to understand exactly why it deserves better.

There’s a particular type of satisfaction in discovering that a city is exactly as good as your most optimistic friend claimed, but also better, and also you should have come years ago. I had this feeling arriving in Ghent on a Wednesday afternoon when the light was doing something unreasonable to the Graslei guild houses and a man on a bicycle was carrying what appeared to be an enormous wheel of cheese. Nobody else seemed to think this was remarkable. This is Ghent: a medieval city running at a contemporary Belgian pace, completely aware of how beautiful it is, and cheerfully uninterested in making a fuss about it.

Start at Gravensteen Castle — a moated, fully intact twelfth-century Flemish castle that looks like it was assembled by someone who had only a verbal description of what a castle was supposed to look like and an unlimited supply of grey stone. The interior museum includes an actual torture chamber with the original instruments displayed in glass cases, which the audio guide describes with a composure I found genuinely impressive.

Walk south to the Graslei and Korenlei quaysides: facing guild houses that have stood since the thirteenth century, reflected in the Leie river, currently photobombing each other across twelve metres of water. This is the most photographed view in Ghent and the photographs don’t do it justice. Sit on the steps and watch a boat go past.

The Ghent Altarpiece — also known as The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, painted by the Van Eyck brothers and completed in 1432 — is one of the most influential paintings in Western art history. It has survived theft, wars, Napoleon, the Nazis (who stole it twice), and a genuinely extraordinary series of misadventures. You need a timed ticket and a willingness to stand in a climate-controlled room feeling quietly overwhelmed by a fifteenth-century polyptych. This is correct.

	Ghent	Bruges
Tourists	Moderate	Very high
Atmosphere	Living city	Museum piece
Student population	70,000+ (big university)	Low
Price level	€€	€€–€€€
Getting there	30 min from Brussels	60 min from Brussels
Best for	Real city experience	Pure medieval beauty

STAM — the Ghent City Museum — is housed in a medieval abbey and tells the history of Ghent from prehistoric times to the present via an excellent permanent collection. Free on Fridays. Two hours well spent.

Lunch in the Patershol quarter: a tiny medieval neighbourhood of narrow lanes and restaurants that is the closest thing to “old Flanders as people imagined it” actually existing in real life. Waterzooi — Ghent’s own cream-based stew of fish (the original) or chicken (the popular adaptation) — is the dish to order. It is restorative in a way that suggests it was designed for people who’d been building cathedrals all morning.

Afternoon: hire a bike (€10/day from multiple spots near the station) and cycle the canal ring. Ghent’s flat enough that this is entirely pleasant rather than aspirational exercise.

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How do I get to Ghent? Direct train from Brussels (30 minutes), Bruges (25 minutes), and Antwerp (50 minutes). The station is well-connected; the centre is a 15-minute walk or tram.

Can I do Ghent as a day trip from Brussels? Yes, but you’ll want two nights to see it properly. It’s worth staying.

Is Ghent good for vegetarians? Surprisingly yes — the city has a strong vegan and vegetarian restaurant culture, and Thursday is officially “Veggie Thursday” citywide, a tradition that started here in 2009 and has never really stopped.

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