DAY 12: Bruges to Ghent (Ghent Marriott)

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We woke to pretty cold and miserable weather. We had a good breakfast again. Our host is Belgian, but obviously of African origin. She's not much of a talker - but always dresses immaculately. Today she was attired in a silver-grey pantsuit, with statement jewellery, fancy nails and beautiful makeup. Quite an image as she silently serves you breakfast!

We headed out to the Groening Museum after breakfast. It's a small museum of Flemish art, with some absolutely beautiful paintings. I took lots of photos to use as desktop backgrounds. One of my favourites was 'Death and the Miser' Jan Provoost. Certainly memorable!

After the museum, we headed back to our B&B to check out and drive on to Ghent. It was only an hour drive and this time it was all accomplished without incident. This hotel actually has a place to park your car while checking in. A luxury!

The hotel is on a canal, and our room has a river view, which is lovely. Ghent is similar to Bruges, in that there are plenty of medieval buildings, but not as many as in Bruges. Here they are more likely to be mixed in with the odd modern building.

We took a walk through the streets and the busy Christmas Market and absolutely froze. It was wet and windy and I wasn't suitably attired. I should have dug out my thickest coat and perhaps considered long johns. We visited St Bavo's Cathedral, the oldest cathedral in Ghent, which has a famous altar painting called 'The Mystic Lamb'. It sounded cool, but you had to pay to view it so we went into the shop and looked at a postcard of it instead. It's an enormous scene, but the best bit is the lamb's strangely human face, which has puzzled people for centuries. I include some closeups here for reference!

We stopped at a cafe for a snack after the Cathedral - something to tide us over until dinner - before heading back to the room to warm up and relax.

We had dinner at the hotel restaurant, which was rather good. I had a spicy carrot soup, followed by saffron risotto (with goats cheese and a poached egg!). Jim had lobster bisque and a rib eye steak.

We were going to go out in the evening, but it was absolutely pouring with rain and we decided against it. That's the beauty of being older tourists - you can go out if you want to and stay in if you don't!

Comments

  1. Barbara5 December 2024 at 12:55

    I would say that artist has never seen a sheep, but surely not. It isn't as if sheep are particularly rare animals.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mary A6 December 2024 at 00:13

    But such a cute little face!

    ReplyDelete

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