A Beautiful November day in the wonderful city of Gent
No other city in Belgium has so many listed building as Gent. The whole inner city should be declared an area of outstanding natural beauty. Many of the building are on UNESCO´s list of world heritage.
To walk around in the city is to walk through history. Though the inner city is beautiful and worthy of preservation Gent is also a modern city with many business enterprises and with a lot of trade.
The city is not only focused on the past but is developing with the current time. This delicate combination makes it a wonderful city - amoungst many of my Belgian collegues also rated as the best city in Belgium - do I need to say that they are from Oost-Vlaanderen.
The gastronomic culture is fantastic in this city. There are more than 350 restaurants and they are offering a broad spectrum of culinary variation, e.
Every fifth year Gent is hosting the biggest flower exhibition in Europe called Gent Floraliën, and as a result of this Gent is well known as a Flower city. The speciality of the region are the begonie and the rhododendron.
I have made it my mission every time my son is visiting me in Belgium that we visit a new Belgian city every time - this weekend we had the fortune to visit this wonderful city. The best thing about walking around a city with no hurry is that you have time to fine the small thing - and this city was full of them.
The city is situated where the rivers Leie and Schelde joins.
The best way to find out te secrets of the city is to take one of the many canal boats - you can see the many different sizes on my pictures. You can take these from either Graslei or Korenlei where you will detect the the beautiful houses with picturesque terraces and wonderful corbie gables. It is possible to rent your own boat also but if you are not up for the water then you can always take a walk in the oldest site of town with is Patershol and enjoy it from the land.
Believe it or not but Gent is a habour city even though it is situated in the middle of Vlaanderen but due to the canals of Gent-Oostende and Gent-Terneuzen (Holland) the has connection to the North Sea.
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We had the fortune to meet the owner there, a very nice guy who just had started this place up together with one in the end of the walking street. The guy had stopped in a working position simular to my own in order to do something for himself. We had a long and very good talk - we came from the same type of jobs and envirement - he was working at one major players in my line of business and it was funny to see how he were using his old working tools in order to transform these two cafés to something different. It was certain that they would change for the better - I liked his ideas. On top of this he was a very nice fellow, we talked about everything, our lives, work, family and so on - and I will definetly come back to see how he is doing and I wish him all the luck with his project.
The café was really nice and both the girls working there and he were very plesant and nice people. We had a very nice lunch there and talking with the locals in a relaxed way always brings you in a good mood.
