Ghent, Belgium

We drove about 45 minutes from Bruges to the university town of Ghent, Belgium.  We had heard that it was just as pretty as Bruges but less touristy.

We took another boat ride!  We were lucky the weather was pretty mild for October.

Soon after this photo was taken, William threw his hat into the water.  Bye bye hat!  Now anytime he sees a boat in a book, he says, "Oh, no, boat, hat!"

The house below was interesting.  It is the only wooden house left in Ghent.

Gravensteen Castle

Ghent has some standard university housing high rises (you can see one in the photo below on the right).  Our canal tour guide told us that it is because of those (ugly) modern buildings that Ghent is not one of the UNESCO World Heritage sites.

There were not as many chocolate shops in Ghent as in Bruges, but there were waffles!!

Graffiti alley in Ghent

I wouldn't want to walk here at night, but in daytime it was interesting.

Jim and Drew in front of the castle

The selfie culture is really interesting nowadays.  I waited on the sidewalk in the photo below while Jim took some photos of the castle and I watched a few different couples take photo after photo of themselves in front of the castle with selfie sticks.  Remember when we used to just take one or two pics with our film cameras and hope for the best?  It's hard, but I want to try to keep to that old mentality even with the new technology.

The main street of Ghent was just beautiful.  We spent most of our time there.

Interesting contrast of old buildings and more modern streetcars.

We took the kids for an evening walk to get some energy out before bedtime.

 And one last view of gorgeous Ghent in the early morning before we headed home.

Ok, one more. :)