If you are headed to Ghent, Gravensteen Castle is a must-see!

For the last of our four days in Belgium, we opted to visit the city of Ghent in northwestern Belgium, about halfway between Bruges and Brussels. At the top of our list was visiting Ghent’s own medieval castle, Gravensteen Castle. It is fortunate that Gravensteen was at the top of our list, because it ended up being the only thing we got to explore fully. It’s a real shame, because it turns out there are a lot of fun things to do with children in Ghent! Pro-tip: if you are going to Ghent, budget more than four hours. Or bring your own cutlery … but we’ll get to that later.

Psst. For more on Ghent, check out a fellow blogger Vicki’s post on Bruges vs. Ghent. 

Anyway, having spent the morning getting everyone up, packed and dragging our luggage down the terror stairs at our apartment — not to mention grabbing a few last-day pain au chocolat — we still managed to drive into Ghent only about half hour later than we wanted to, 9:30. But while I’d set our Google Maps to direct us toward Gravensteen Castle, I was beginning to get nervous as we allegedly crept closer and closer to our target. 1 kilometer … 750 meters … 500 meters … WHY CAN’T I SEE A CASTLE YET?? Immediately I was imagining that somehow I’d steered us wrong, or perhaps the castle was going to be smaller and WAY LESS COOL than I’d built it up to be.

And then we turned a corner.

BAM! Yes, that will do! 

Suffice it to say, we were impressed even from the outside. It was quite a lot different from the stunning “fancy” castles we saw on our Loire Valley trip, which dated from at least a few hundred years later and were much more decorative than defensive. But this castle was exactly what you’d imagine a medieval castle would look like, and reminded me a lot of the Tower of London, though on a smaller scale.

From this side, it looks like it is plopped right in the middle of a canal. 

Stranger still, it was popped right in the center of Ghent — a medieval castle in the center of a town I can best describe as having a trendy, hipster sort of vibe.

We paid 10 euro each for the adults to get into Gravensteen Castle, while the kids were free. Aside from a pair of school groups, we had the place almost entirely to ourselves for our visit. This is a benefit of off-peak travel! And by “off-peak travel,” I mean “travel when it is freaking FREEZING.”

This castle was apparently used as a set for the filming of part of the The White Queen, an amazing series I highly recommend. Though it takes place in England a several hundred years after than this castle was built. 

So, we set off wandering. I do think it might have been cool to have a tour to tell us some of the history of Gravensteen Castle, but there was a lot to look at and most of the signage was in English, French and Dutch. But here’s a bit of background: Gravensteen apparently means “Castle of the Counts.” It was built in 1180 by Philip of Alsace and  modeled after castles that Philip had seen while on the Second Crusade. It was the seat of the Counts of Flanders for a few centuries, until it later took on a rather less glamorous role as a prison. This is no doubt the reason you can see medieval torture devices in places throughout the castle, though if that turns your stomach (like it does mine!) they are easy to avoid. The kids didn’t notice any thing.

Ok, except this one. 

Pretty good sword, no? Chris is 6’1″ and the sword appears to be about the same. 

Despite the cold, walking on the top-most part of the castle was our favorite part. The views were incredible!

You can see St. Michael’s Bridge and the Belfry of Ghent in this one. 

After visiting Gravensteen Castle, we had pretty grand aspirations for the rest of the day. However, the cold and two tired kids somewhat conspired against us. We did stop for hot chocolate at a shop directly across from Gravensteen Castle called IN Choc, which was FANTASTIC. I had a hot chocolate with shots of espresso and it was fabulous.

From there our goal was to walk through the city’s Graffiti Alley to check out some of the famous Ghent street art en route to Gruut Brewery, where we intended to have lunch before taking in the sights of Ghent’s canals and several gorgeous historic monuments: St. Bavo’s Cathedral, St. Nicolas’ Church and the Belfry of Ghent (the famed ‘three towers’ of Ghent’s medieval skyline). We did manage to walk past several of these, but managed to miss the Graffiti Alley and, with two kids whining about being cold and tired, we decided it was best to press on for sustenance. This is, of course, the counter-argument against off-peak travel.

St. Nicholas Church in Ghent. 

The Gruut Brewery was a place I’d read about and was pumped to visit — I’d even already decided what I was going to eat while there. Except that once we got there, it proved they did not have food (perhaps only for dinner?). Naturally we didn’t realize this until we ordered a flight of beers, which we’d intended to share over a meal. Damned Dutch menu.

The place itself was very cool though, super trendy. I would imaging visiting it at a busier time, rather than when it was awkwardly empty, would have been awesome. And at any rate, the beer was very tasty.

So, from here things got a bit rocky. After Chris and I gulped our beers, we still had to find food for the kids and ourselves before we could get in the car and drive to the Charleroi airport for our flights home. We walked into a restaurant and inquired whether an hour would be sufficient and were assured that it would be fine. In Italy, I wouldn’t believe someone if they told me this, but we’d had surprisingly quick service most places in Belgium, so we went with it. Big mistake. At about the 45 minute mark, we were asking them to just have it packed up and we’d eat in the car. At 55 minutes were were dancing around near the entrance to make it clear we had to leave. At 60 minutes, Chris was telling them we’d pay for it regardless but we need to leave NOW. At 62 minutes, the food arrived and we headed out the door with the intent of eating in the car.

Naturally, there was no cutlery. I ended up breaking up the kids’ chicken breast (they  forgotten the french fries, the only thing that would have been easy to eat in the car!) and Chris’s shrimp-stuffed chicken to feed to them by hand as we drove.

I’d ordered a chicken stew.

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