Three days in Ghent: a medieval city that never turned into a museum
Two nights in the car-free centre, the van Eyck altarpiece and the belfry on the first afternoon, the castle and the old quarters on the second day.
- Length
- 3 days, 2 nights
- Where you stay
- Ghent
- Places
- 8 across 3 days
Ghent was one of the largest cities in Europe in the 14th century, second only to Paris north of the Alps, and it has the skyline to prove it: three towers in a row, a guild quay, a moated castle sitting in the middle of the shopping streets. What it does not have is the hush of a preserved town. A quarter of a million people live here, tens of thousands of them students, and the medieval centre is where they drink, cycle and hold their markets.
That combination is the reason to give it two nights rather than the two hours most people allow between Bruges and Brussels. In the daytime it is a city of altarpieces and towers. After dark the same streets are floodlit under a lighting plan the city takes seriously, the bars along the water fill up, and nothing closes early.
The centre is compact, flat and largely closed to cars, so three days here means walking. An afternoon for the cathedral and the towers, a full day for the castle and the quarters around it, and a last morning at the Bijloke abbey on the way to the station.
Highlights
- Van Eyck's altarpiece, restored, back in the cathedral it was painted for in 1432
- The belfry by lift, then the last flight on foot, for the three towers lined up below you
- A 12th century crusader castle with a moat, in the middle of the shopping district
- The Graslei quay at dusk, when the old guild houses come on over the water
- Two hundred genevers in a bar the size of a front room
Where to stay
Ghent, two nights in the centre
Sleep between the cathedral and the Gravensteen and you can walk out into everything. The Patershol, a knot of narrow lanes behind the castle, is the prettiest area and full of restaurants; the streets around the Vrijdagmarkt are livelier and cheaper.
Rooms cost noticeably less than in Bruges and the city is bigger, so book with the location in mind rather than the price alone. Anything south of the ring around Sint-Pieters is a tram ride from the parts you came to see.
Day by day
Day 1 in Ghent
The cathedral, the belfry and the quays at dusk
Everything on the first afternoon stands within three hundred metres, on the low ridge the city grew from. The cathedral, the belfry and Saint Nicholas line up in a row, which is how the postcard shot of the three towers is taken.
Do the altarpiece first while your attention is fresh, then the belfry for the view over the roofs it sits in, then walk down to the water for the hour the lighting plan was designed around. That is the evening people remember from Ghent.
- 14:30
Sint-Baafskathedraal
ReligiousA plain enough exterior over an interior full of Rubens, a baroque pulpit and, in a side chapel with its own ticket, the van Eyck altarpiece finished in 1432, the painting that ended the Middle Ages in northern art. Book the timed slot; walk-ups are turned away on busy afternoons.
- 16:15
Belfort en Lakenhalle
OtherBegun in 1313 and finished in 1380, the tower the city built to hold its charters and ring its own bells rather than the church's. A lift climbs most of it and the upper gallery at 66 metres has the view; the great bell Roland and the carillon are on the way up. The cloth hall attached to it dates from 1425.
- 18:00
Graslei
LandmarkThe medieval harbour, a row of stepped and crow-stepped guild houses standing on the west bank of the Leie: the grain weighers' house, the toll house, the free boatmen's guild. Cross the bridge and look back from the Korenlei, and come again after dark when the whole row is lit.
- 19:15
't Dreupelkot
EatA tiny bar behind the water with around two hundred genevers, a good many of them made in the back. They come out of the freezer, filled to the brim, and you take the first sip without lifting the glass. The pepper one is a dare rather than a drink.
- 20:15
Dinner in the Patershol
EatThe lanes behind the castle hold most of the good kitchens in Ghent in about four streets. Book ahead at weekends, and try the waterzooi if the weather is doing what Belgian weather usually does.
With more time: If you arrive in the morning instead, Saint Nicholas is the third of the towers and the oldest, built by the merchants of the market in blue-grey Tournai stone, and it takes twenty minutes to walk through.
Day 2 in Ghent
The castle, the old quarters and the Friday market
Today is the north half of the old town, which is the half people live in. Start at the castle before the coaches from Bruges reach it, then wander the Patershol on the way to a museum about ordinary Flemish life rather than about counts and painters.
The afternoon ends on the Vrijdagmarkt, a square that has been a market and a meeting place for eight hundred years and is now ringed with cafes. If your dates land on a Friday or a Saturday, the stalls are still there.
- 09:30
Het Gravensteen
HistoricA moated stone castle raised in 1180 by Philip of Alsace, count of Flanders, after he came back from the Crusades wanting something that looked like what he had seen. Two metre walls, a battlement walk with the best rooftop view in the city, and a small museum of the instruments the counts used on people who annoyed them.
- 11:30
Huis van Alijn
CultureA museum of everyday Flemish life set in a row of almshouses around a courtyard: home films, wedding photographs, toys, packaging, the contents of ordinary drawers. It sounds slight and it is the museum people leave talking about. The courtyard cafe is a good place to sit.
- 13:00
Lunch by the meat hall
EatThe old covered meat market on the water is worth putting your head into for the roof alone, built without a single nail, with hams hanging from the beams. There are simple lunch places on the quay either side of it.
- 14:30
Vrijdagmarkt
VisitThe city's political square since the 13th century, where guilds gathered, counts were confronted and the odd riot started. Markets run on Friday morning and Saturday afternoon, a bird market on Sunday morning, and the cafes on the north side stay busy in between.
With more time: With more time, the industrial museum in an old cotton mill five minutes away covers the other Ghent, the textile city of the 19th century that made the money the centre no longer shows, and the contemporary art museum in the citadel park south of the centre is the best of its kind in Flanders.
Day 3 in Ghent
Purple sweets, the city museum and the tram south
The last morning runs south towards the station, so leave the bags at the hotel or the station lockers and take the walk rather than doubling back.
Buy the sweets in the centre first, because the carts are a Ghent institution and they are not at the station. Then the city museum, which is in an abbey on the way and puts everything you have walked past into order.
- 09:45
Cuberdons sold by street vendors
VisitPurple cones with a syrupy raspberry centre, sold from two carts near the Groentenmarkt by rival vendors who have taken their disagreement as far as the newspapers. Buy a small bag, eat them the same day, and do not put them in a suitcase.
- 10:30
STAM – Ghent city museum
CultureThe city museum, in the 14th century Bijloke abbey, telling Ghent from the Romans to the ring road with three hundred objects and a walkable aerial photograph of the city on the floor. The abbey refectory has wall paintings older than van Eyck. Twenty minutes' walk from the centre, ten from the platforms.
- 12:30
Tram or walk to Gent-Sint-Pieters
NoteIt is about ten minutes on foot from the museum to the platforms, or one stop on tram 1. Trains to Bruges, Antwerp and Brussels run several times an hour, so there is no need to build in slack.
With more time: If the train is later, the great beguinage of Saint Elisabeth west of the centre was founded in 1234 and is still a walled village of small houses and lanes, and it takes about half an hour to walk around.
Before you go
Getting in and getting around
Trains from Brussels take about half an hour, from Bruges 25 minutes and from Antwerp an hour, several times an hour in each case. From Brussels Airport it is around an hour with one change. Nearly everything arrives at Gent-Sint-Pieters, which is two kilometres south of the old town.
From that station, tram 1 runs to the centre in about ten minutes and takes contactless payment. Walking it takes half an hour and is not especially interesting, so take the tram in and save your legs.
The old town has been closed to through traffic since 2017 and the difference is obvious the moment you arrive: bicycles, trams and pedestrians, and no reason at all to have brought a car. Nothing below is more than a twenty-five minute walk from the cathedral.
The altarpiece, and how to see it
The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb is the single most important painting in Belgium and the visit has changed several times in recent years as the restoration finished panel by panel. It is shown in the cathedral with timed entry, an augmented reality guide and a queue that builds through the day, so book online and take the first slot you can.
One panel is a copy and always will be. The Just Judges was stolen in 1934, ransom notes followed, the thief died without saying where he had put it, and the replacement painted in 1945 has hung in the frame ever since. It is the most famous unsolved art theft in Europe and it happened here.
Eating, drinking and the local sugar
Ghent claims to be the vegetarian capital of Europe and has a fair case: meat-free Thursdays started as a city campaign here and most kitchens now cook accordingly. It is also a genever city. The juniper spirit that gin came from is served ice cold in small glasses, in hundreds of flavours, and two is plenty.
The local sweet is the cuberdon, a purple cone with a soft raspberry centre, sold from carts in the centre by vendors whose rivalry has been reported in the national press. They go hard within days, so eat them here rather than packing them.
Waterzooi, a creamy chicken or fish stew, is the dish the city is known for. It is heavy, it is good in winter, and no version of it improves for being eaten on a terrace in August.
When to go
May to September gives you the long evenings that the lit quays are built for. The Gentse Feesten take over the whole centre for ten days in July: free stages, enormous crowds, and hotel prices to match, which is either the reason to come or the week to avoid.
Museums here mostly close on Monday and the cathedral limits visits during services on Sunday morning. Winter is dark and wet, and the lighting plan makes it the season the city photographs best.
Ghent rewards the hour nobody schedules. A bench on the Graslei when the lights come on, a bar with a tiled floor and a shelf of frozen bottles, a bicycle bell behind you in a lane where a car has not been allowed in years.
It is also the easiest base in Flanders. Bruges, Antwerp and Brussels are all under an hour by train, several times an hour, which makes a third night here worth more than a first night somewhere else.
Or make it a longer trip
These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.
Make it your trip
Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.
Common questions
- Ghent or Bruges, if I only have time for one?
- Bruges is prettier and more crowded; Ghent is bigger, livelier and cheaper to sleep in, and it has the better single artwork. If you want a postcard, go to Bruges. If you want an evening out in a medieval city where people actually live, come here. They are 25 minutes apart, so the honest answer is both.
- Do I need to book the Mystic Lamb?
- Yes. Entry to the chapel is timed and capped, tickets go online, and afternoons in summer sell out. Take the earliest slot of the day and you will have the panels to yourself for a few minutes.
- Is Ghent good in the rain?
- Better than most. The cathedral, the belfry lift, the house museum and the city museum are all indoor, and the distances between them are short enough to run between. The one thing that suffers is the evening on the quays.
- Can I do Ghent as a day trip from Brussels?
- You can, and you would see the cathedral and the towers and miss the point. The city is at its best in the two hours after sunset, when the towers and the quays are lit and the day visitors have gone back.
- How much does the altarpiece visit cost?
- There is a charge for the chapel that houses it, separate from the free entry to the rest of the cathedral, and the ticket includes an augmented reality headset that reconstructs the panels as they were painted. Prices change; book on the cathedral's own site rather than through a reseller.