In which we talk Belgium, part two

Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels form a fairly equal-sided triangle, with Ghent closest to the water. We stayed the longest in Ghent, using it as a launching area for day trips.

Once upon a time, Ghent was a really big city, bigger than early Paris, but over time it fell into the background. It is one of the nicest places we’ve ever stayed. You can walk it easily, although it seems as if most people bike it: Belgium is generally flat, of course, and Ghent is perfect for a two-wheeler. You probably don’t even need gears on the bike. And there’s plenty of real dedicated bike lanes, as compared to afterthought divisions, and car drivers, and pedestrians, honor them. Not that there’s that many cars, for a city this big. For the people who commute (Brussels is about an hour away by train), there’s a parking lot for bicycles that easily numbered bikes in the thousands. Amazing.

Ghent is a city of smaller attractions, and while there were certainly tourists there, you don’t feel as if the place is simply tourism fodder. But there are nice attractions to visit, including a design museum Gravensteen ( an old castle, promoting its exceptionally large collection of torture devices), a local art museum that in addition to Belgian artists happened to be featuring Julia Margaret Cameron (provided by the V&A), a carillon tower where you can watch what is essentially a ginormous music box, lace and beer and chocolate shops (of course), etc., etc., etc. We were loath to leave for our day trips, charmed as we were, and ended up losing one of them. On the others we went first to Bruges, a revisit. Bruges is like an Epcot pavilion: it’s really crowded and looks just like the real thing. It’s one of the most tourist-plagued places I’ve even been, and I’ve been to a lot of tourist-plagued places. When we first went, we appreciated its charms, but now we realized that there was about as much charm, and a lot fewer people, back at Ghent. The other day trip was to the coast. We caught a train to Ostende then traveled down practically into France by tram. We walked some interesting parkland and on the water and whatnot. Apparently the area is quite popular during swimming season, although I gather the North Sea never heats up much.

I would recommend Ghent to anyone for a few days stay off the beaten path.

By the way, all of Belgium remains, at least in my eyes, one of the smokingest countries around. They seem to even outpuff the Parisians. Maybe it has something to do with them being ground zero of the European Union and they're all worried about whether Greece or someone like them will default. Take that, Euro! I have to say, along those lines, that it was nice traveling when the Euro was pretty close to dollar parity. That probably won't happen again real soon.