Ghent, part I

Ghent from Bruges was a fairly reasonable half hour train ride. There was still plenty of daylight so I alighted at the Gent-Sint-Pieters railway station, and followed my Google GPS to the old city centre. It was about a 40 minute walk which took me through some very ugly city boroughs that were reminiscent of decrepit, eastern European outlier towns.

The weather was still blustery and grey and the sun had vanished to world's end, but at least it had stopped raining, and that made all the difference in the world.

The buildings all looked something like this, it was very depressing

And then I reached the Old Town, and my jaw fair fell down to the ground. I've never seen such a statuesque town before. Cathedrals upon cathedrals upon more cathedrals. This is the highest concentration of Gothic buildings I've ever seen in one place, and to think, all of this majesty is buried within the ugliest outer town you can possibly imagine.

Rathaus, as always

Obligatory Flemish-style buildings that are so characteristic in the Baltics, Germany and the Netherlands as well.

Hands down my favourite Belgic city/town.

More to come.

Brugge, part II

Like I said, it rained and rained in Brugge, and looking back at these photos now all I can really remember is lots of walking and lots of raining and dampness and cold. It was nice if you like that sort of thing, which I do, sometimes, but you know what they say about too much of a good thing.

Something about this impassive, taciturn sign is very funny

This area strikes me as being very Cambridge, really.

Will I ever come back to travel? In all honesty, probably not - but who can say?

Just seeing this picture reminds me again of how horribly cold and wet it was

I walked around and eventually felt so cold and wet that I thought, well screw this, I'm getting some chips. So here they are. Belgium's apparently famous for its chips, and it's true, they ARE good, although expensive. I think this cost something around 2-3 EUR.

I made my way back to the train station, sat myself down and waited for the train for Ghent, and as I always do, I took random pictures of random locomotives hurtling by.

Station upholstery

Dreiländereck and Brugge, part I

Dreiländereck was done during my Aachen trip, as it was on the same bus route, but I couldn't fit it properly into the Aachen entries. Dreiländereck is nothing fancy - it's stuck in the middle of nowhere, for one thing, and it's basically the point where Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium converges. I spent a LOT of time walking around, and got a bit lost several times. Still though, obligatory photos.

Belgium's a bit more interesting to write about. I did Bruges and Ghent in one day as there was a rail pass valid for 24 hours that allowed me to travel unlimited throughout the Flemish region of Belgium. It probably would have been nice to split these trips up a bit, but the transport in this part of the world is just so SO expensive. I wanted to visit Antwerp too but that really would have been pushing it too far. As it is, doing Bruges and Ghent in one day was already hefty enough.

The weather for Bruges was simply awful - it rained and rained, but I think the photos turned out all right. Bruges reminded me a lot of Stratford-upon-Avon, and Cambridge, even. It was very nice, very peaceful and quiet - and a tiny bit boring. The half afternoon I spent there walking around was more than adequate. Still though, loads of pictures so I've split up these two entries.

All roads lead to Liege

The train