Ghent is consistently underrated in international travel writing in favour of Bruges. This is an error. Ghent is a functioning medieval city with a cultural depth that Bruges, for all its picturesque quality, cannot match.
Ghent is consistently underrated in international travel writing in favour of Bruges. This is an error that we have heard corrected by every knowledgeable Belgian we have encountered. Ghent is a functioning medieval city with a cultural depth — Flemish Primitives, Ghent Altarpiece, STAM city museum — that Bruges, for all its picturesque quality, cannot match.
The practical case for Ghent over Bruges is also clear for clients coming from Brussels: 60 kilometres versus 100, on motorway versus secondary roads. A morning departure from Brussels places you in the Korenmarkt by 09:30, before the day-visitors who arrive by train.
The Ghent Altarpiece — Jan van Eyck's Adoration of the Mystic Lamb — is the centrepiece of the experience and requires unhurried attention. The panel painting, completed in 1432 and reunified only in 2022 after centuries of displacement and wartime theft, is displayed in the St Bavo's Cathedral under conditions that reward private viewing at opening or closing rather than mid-afternoon.
The gravensteen — the medieval count's castle — is visible from every direction and somewhat less visited than its dramatic exterior warrants. The Patershol neighbourhood, adjacent to the gravensteen, is Ghent's gastronomic quarter: a dense cluster of restaurants in converted medieval buildings that includes several institutions worth a specific reservation.
The canal system, which defines Ghent's urban character as completely as Brussels' boulevards define its counterpart, is best experienced from the water. A private boat on the inner city canals provides a perspective on the guild houses, tower clusters, and historic bridges that ground-level walking cannot replicate.
FFGR Belgium handles Ghent as either a day itinerary from Brussels or as part of a Flanders-wide programme combining Ghent, Bruges, and Antwerp over two to three days. The longer programme requires hotel recommendations in each city — our concierge team's first choice in Ghent is the 1898 The Post, a converted former post office in the city centre.