Europe 2012-Day 15 Ghent, Belgium

After getting Nate off to work we headed south into Belgium to the town of Ghent. We made our way down the narrow one way streets until we found the Castle Gravensteen. We arrived with perfect timing as they were just opening for the day.

Castle Gravensteen in Ghent, Belgium

This is the street just outside the castle. It's located in the middle of the city.

The castle is marked with numbered signs and arrows to take you on a tour. There are brief explanations of the rooms in English, Dutch, and Flemish.

The sign above is for this room. The Great Hall.

Most of the stairways were circular and lit with small windows.

I was surprised that there was really nothing for furniture in the castle, however it does house an extensive amount of torture devices including a guillotine that were historically used in Ghent.

Had to take pictures of the armory for Nate

This sword was over 6' in length, you would have to be a giant to wield this one

This sword is also a gun!

The view from the top of the castle.

Kristie standing on top of the castle wall to get a better picture. Falling is not recommended.

This is what it looked like below where Kristie was standing.

This guillotine was used in Ghent from 1796 to 1891. The blade is original

The Castle was originally built in 1180 by count Philip of Alsace, and was used by the Counts of Flanders until the 14^th century.  After that time it was used for various things such as a courthouse, a prison, and even a factory. The Castle was actually scheduled to be demolished when the city of Ghent decided to buy and restore it back in 1885.

This room was full of torture devices.

This was the Kitchen. Obviously the cook must have burnt something.

After our tour it was time for lunch. As we didn’t want to spend hours at a sit down place we settled on a fast food type place where we all got a burger and fries. When we were on our castle tour we could see several cool looking cathedrals not far away and so we decided to try find them. As we wandered we found the city square with ... you may have guessed it, another open market!

In the city center

We did find one of the churches but it was closed. Around that time it started to rain so we headed for the car. Getting out of the area proved a bit challenging as there seemed to be construction everywhere and with all the one way roads and canals we ended going in a circle two or three times. I finally told Dave to just drive the opposite way for awhile until Tomtom stopped trying to direct us into the construction road block. We eventually got to the freeway and headed for Eindhoven.

ASML from the freeway

Nate actually got off work on time, and we decided to try an Italian restaurant that had been recommended to him. The name of the place was Mangiare, and all the food we had was really good. I’m sure we’ll be back there in the near future.