(perhaps we shouldn't have been too surprised since this was our view as we walked out the front door of the B&B), but it was letting up again as we got there, so after about fifteen minutes vendors began pulling tarps off so people could continue browsing. This market was much more extensive than Saturday's, but neither of us found anything we couldn't live without.
We decided that the other main thing that we wanted to see if we were in Brugge (and we were) was one of the windmills. There were originally 20 some lining the northern and eastern boarders of the city, but today only three remain. We traipsed through the city, me attempting to lead us in the most direct route possible, which took us by some (more) quaint buildings with stepped gable (or 'crow stepped gable') architectural features.
Old St. John's Hospital
St. Savior's Cathedral (12th - 15th century)
We also went back through the Market Square, much more bustling in the late morning.
It took about fifteen minutes to get from the Market Square to the last of the windmills, and literally we were walking along a street that just ended on a nice lawn with little hillocks peaked by said windmills. They were neat to see. And... that's about it.
Well, okay, to get to this one there was a romantic little tree-lined path that you got to walk along next to a canal. There was also this stellar towered building near where the street dead-ended which made me start composing little haunted stories and heroic knight-winning-the-maiden tales in my head.
But, feeling like we had seen much of Brugge and eager to get on to Ghent, Ian and I headed back to our B&B, collected our bags, and walked through Minnewater Park one last time to catch our train.
About half an hour later we pulled into Ghent. Unlike Brugge where everything is within walking distance, we had to catch a tram in Ghent to get to our B&B. It was admittedly not nearly as charming and hospitable as our last experience, but hey, it was nice, small, and pleasant. Ghent, on the other hand, was, well, I don't want to say it wasn't nice, small, and pleasant, but it very distinctly lacked the feel of Brugge. Perhaps it was just that it was bigger, more spread out, and was occasionally sullied by horrible American franchising.
But that aside, Ghent was nice. So, when you go to Ghent as an average tourist wanting to see the average touristy things, there are two things you'll note and probably want to check out more thoroughly. One. There is a castle:
Specifically Het Gravensteen, the ancient Castle of the Counts. Two: There are some pretty prominent spires in Ghent:
From left to right: St. Baafskathedral (St. Bavo's Cathedral), the Belfort, St. Niklaaskerk (St. Nicholas' Church), and a clock tower.
Ian and I were a hair past hungry at this point and considered seeking out one of the places listed in my guidebook, but why navigate yet unknown streets on an empty stomach when we could eat at the (likely ridiculously overpriced) Fish Market just across from the castle - the closest landmark to our B&B?
All of the restaurants on that little square looked identical, so we snagged an open table. Except we happened to choose the one restaurant where the chef had had to leave because of an emergency, and the sous-chef wasn't qualified to prepare either of the dishes Ian and I ordered (or something like that that made us raise our eyebrows), but the waiter helped us come to an agreeable second choice and we dug in. This was, of course, finished off with a delicious Belgian waffle with ice cream (seriously, those things are addictive; I can't eat enough of them!).
Thoroughly sated, we decided it was only logical that our first stop was the castle. It was your typical castle tour with information on the old goings-on and artifacts (including a few of the likely 'tamer' torture devices previously implemented), but I happen to like castles and picturing potential attempted sieges and such, so I thought it was great! Ian did, too.
The upper terrace also afforded some pretty spiffy views. Not to mention just wandering around looking over the parapets was neat.
I think the illustration is self-explanatory.
But, let's be honest: For your average castle-viewer, it was an average castle. Maybe a little above average because I think they did a good job of presenting the information and allowing one to explore almost everywhere, but in my humble opinion it didn't hold a candle to Ashford or Menlough Castles (both in Ireland, both favorites for wholly different reasons).
Ian and I then began to wander in the direction of the towering places of worship, but were sort of waining on the desire to keep walking. We had joked about seeing a movie earlier, but the prospect was suddenly becoming more and more appealing. There was one that was definitely at the top of both of our lists, too: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II. Yes, like 92% of our generation, we had been eagerly anticipating the release of the final Harry Potter movie (and heck, I don't even like the movies! The books are another story...) but neither of us had gotten around to seeing it in Vienna. And we called ourselves dedicated fans! So we bypassed the churches and belfry for the nonce in search of one of the English theaters that our waiter at lunch had told us about. We walked maybe a third of the way, still in the old historic part of the city, but as we neared the brink of true antiquity we decided to just take public transportation. I am glad that we walked the part we did, though.
Great Butchers' Hall on the left
About the point where we decided to stop and wait for a tram...
...across the street from Gerard the Devil's castle. Unfortunately not open to the public.
We got off at the right stop, walked through a park, and found our massive cinema complex. We bought tickets for an early evening showing (you're assigned seats! This was my first movie theater experience in Europe, one movie in Ireland excluded, but apparently this is common practice), then went to a restaurant across the street for a light dinner. Another quirk when we got back to the theater - they kept the entrance to each screen roped off until the showtime. We all piled in when they finally came by (as if it had any influence on where we sat), and I was pleased to see that even though it had been out over a month, the theater was at least half-full.
We laughed. We cried. We made friends with the guys sitting next to us during the intermission (I heard rumor that there was no intermission in the US?). Then we laughed and cried some more. Well, maybe a little less on the laughing side since just about everyone dies, not to give too much away. We were satisfied.
It was dark when we got out, so we took public transportation back to about where we got on earlier, then figured we could walk from there. It was a really nice night, and we didn't have any particular destination in mind as we strolled up the street, when suddenly we noticed particularly neon lights down one street. Hmmm. We should probably investigate. As we strolled past shop fronts, Woah! Did that mannequin just move?! We looked again. That wasn't a mannequin. We had (definitely unwittingly) found Ghent's red light district. Now, I'm not certain how these things normally work, but we were both a little surprised to see that in fact every 'shop front' was actually a window so you could, in every sense of the term, go window shopping. A tad bemused by the whole thing, we decided to just go back the way we had come. After a little later research, I learned that in fact Ghent is well-known for its red light district. Who would have thought?
Anyway, after that little detour we continued back towards the older part of town. As I said, it was a really nice night for walking around. We had in mind to find a laid-back pub to grab a drink and sit outside, maybe talk to some locals, but we ended up wandering around for almost an hour without coming across anywhere really that satisfactory.
However it was just as nice roaming around and chatting with Ian, so I didn't mind too much. We never really did determine, though, why we couldn't find anywhere. We heard music coming from a few places, but they were mostly clubs or louder bars where it would be harder to talk to anyone. Perhaps we were just in the wrong part of town. Or perhaps it being a Sunday had something to do with it. Nevertheless, it wasn't a bad evening, but we eventually called it quits and headed back to catch some shut eye.
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