Belgium · Flanders
Ghent
A medieval cloth-trade metropolis with van Eyck's altarpiece and a castle in its centre, run today as a student city rather than a showpiece.
Ghent was one of the biggest cities in medieval Europe, and the wealth of the cloth trade is still standing: a river-front wall of guild houses, three towers in a row, and the moated Gravensteen castle sitting in the middle of the street plan. In Saint Bavo's Cathedral hangs the Ghent Altarpiece, the van Eyck brothers' polyptych of 1432 and one of the most consequential paintings ever made. Around all of it is a working student city that never turned itself into a museum.
Suggested stay
2–3 days
Language
Dutch, French
Currency
EUR
Timezone
UTC+2
Why you'll love Ghent
The Altarpiece van Eyck's Adoration of the Mystic Lamb has stood in Saint Bavo's since 1432, survived Calvinists, Napoleon and Hitler, and is still missing one stolen panel
The waterfront two quays of stepped guild gables face each other across the Leie, best at dusk when the whole centre is floodlit
Not a museum city a huge university keeps the bars, the cheap eating and the car-free centre in use by people who actually live here
Eating the country's vegetarian capital, with a city-backed meat-free Thursday, plus waterzooi, mustard scooped from the barrel and cone-shaped cuberdon sweets
Best time to visit
Apr-Oct
15-24° days
51.054° N, 3.725° E
UTC+2 · Europe/Brussels
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Weather & when to go to Ghent
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best Apr-Oct
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Ghent
Dec and Jan are the low point: dark by mid-afternoon, wet, and cold off the water. Mid-July brings the Gentse Feesten, ten days when the medieval centre becomes one enormous street party, superb if that is what you came for and unworkable if it is not. Apr-Oct is the easy stretch, with May, Jun and Sep the sweet spot.
Top things to do in Ghent
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Ghent Altarpiece - van Eyck in Saint Bavo's Cathedral
culture arts history 👍 PopularThe Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, finished in 1432, now sits in a climate-controlled chapel after a restoration stripped centuries of overpaint and gave the Lamb back its unnervingly human face. Twelve panels remain; the Just Judges was stolen in 1934 and has never been found.
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Gravensteen - the counts' castle in the middle of town
history 👍 PopularPhilip of Alsace's 1180 keep, with moat, gatehouse and battlements, rescued from a spell as a cotton factory and slum housing. The audio tour is a famous comic riff rather than a history lecture, and the ramparts give the best rooftop view of the old city.
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Graslei and Korenlei - the guild-house quays
scenic history 👍 PopularThe old inland harbour on the Leie is lined on both banks with the stepped and pointed gables of the corn measurers, masons and grain merchants. Sitting on the cobbles with a beer as the floodlights come on across the water is the city's signature evening.
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Belfry of Ghent - the middle tower of the three
history scenicThe 14th-century belfry standing between Saint Bavo's and Saint Nicholas' completes the famous row of towers. A lift climbs past the carillon and the great bell Roland to the dragon on the spire, and the view explains the whole shape of the medieval city.
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Patershol - eat in the medieval quarter
food history ⭐ Highly recommendedA knot of narrow lanes behind the castle, once the leather workers' and Carmelite quarter, now the densest concentration of restaurants in the city, from long-cooked Flemish stews to serious modern cooking. Small, quiet underfoot and entirely walkable after dark.
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Huis van Alijn - everyday life in a medieval almshouse
culture arts history ⭐ Highly recommendedA museum of ordinary Flemish life, births, weddings, holidays and funerals, arranged around the courtyard of a 14th-century almshouse founded as penance for a double murder. Home movies and drawers full of other people's things, and far more moving than that sounds.
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STAM - the city museum in an abbey
history culture artsGhent's own museum runs through the Bijloke abbey complex and opens with a room-sized aerial photograph of the city that you walk across, which is the best possible orientation on a first morning.
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MSK and SMAK - old masters and contemporary, face to face
culture artsCitadelpark holds the Museum of Fine Arts, with Bosch, Rubens and the Flemish Primitives, directly opposite SMAK, the contemporary art museum. Six centuries in an afternoon, with a park in between.
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Werregarenstraat - the legal graffiti alley
culture arts off beaten pathA lane between Hoogpoort and the cathedral where painting the walls is permitted and every surface changes within days. A genuine piece of the city's contrarian streak rather than a commissioned mural trail.
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Vrijdagmarkt and Bij Sint-Jacobs - markets and terraces
shopping foodA market has run on the Vrijdagmarkt since the 13th century, under a statue of Jacob van Artevelde pointing at England. Around the corner the weekend flea and vintage market spreads through the streets at Bij Sint-Jacobs, and the surrounding squares are solid terraces.
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Waterzooi, cuberdons and meat-free Thursday - eating in Ghent
foodGentse waterzooi is the local chicken-and-cream stew, and stoofvlees is cooked in beer. Buy mustard scooped from a barrel on the Groentenmarkt and cuberdons, purple cones sold from vans nearby. A meat-free Thursday campaign since 2009 has made the vegetarian cooking unusually good.
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Canal boat - the old harbour from the water
scenicSmall open boats work the Leie past the guild-house quays and out towards the abbey ruins, which is the angle the buildings were designed to be seen from. Trips run through the warmer months and thin out in winter.
Best areas to stay in Ghent
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Binnenstad (Kuip van Gent)
First-time visitors $$Guild-house quays, towers, car-free lanes
Explore hotels in Binnenstad (Kuip van Gent) →
Patershol
Food & atmosphere $$Medieval lanes, restaurants, quiet after dark
Explore hotels in Patershol →
Sint-Jacobs & Vrijdagmarkt
Nightlife & markets $$Bar squares, markets, vintage shops
Explore hotels in Sint-Jacobs & Vrijdagmarkt →
Sint-Pieters & Citadelpark
Easy arrivals $Station, parkland and the big museums
Explore hotels in Sint-Pieters & Citadelpark →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Ghent
Getting to & around Ghent
Getting there
Fly into Brussels Airport, then a direct train to Gent-Sint-Pieters in about an hour
Flight
Brussels Airport (Zaventem) (BRU)
About 60 km east. Direct trains leave the station beneath the terminal for Gent-Sint-Pieters roughly hourly and take a little under an hour; from there tram 1 runs into the centre in around fifteen minutes.
Train
Gent-Sint-Pieters
The main station and the hub of the Flemish network: Bruges in about twenty-five minutes, Brussels in half an hour, Antwerp in about an hour
High-speed train
Brussels-Midi
Eurostar from London, Paris and Amsterdam lands at Brussels-Midi, with frequent connecting intercity trains on to Ghent
Coach
International coaches from Paris, Amsterdam and the German cities serve Ghent, stopping beside a station rather than in the centre
Drive
The E17 and E40 motorways cross just outside the city, but the centre is a low-emission zone built around a circulation plan that keeps cars out; use a park-and-ride
Getting around
Walking
The centre is one of the largest car-free zones in Europe and crosses on foot in about twenty minutes
Free
Tram
De Lijn trams link Gent-Sint-Pieters to the centre and on to Dampoort; tram 1 is the one most visitors use
TBC
Bus
Buses fill in where the trams do not reach, including the northern and eastern suburbs
TBC
Cycling
Flat, compact and laced with bike lanes, with rental shops and bike-share stands around both stations
TBC
Boat
Tour boats work the Leie through the old harbour, the angle the guild houses were built to be seen from
TBC
Taxi & rideshare
Available at the stations, though the circulation plan makes a car slower than walking inside the centre
TBC
Day trips from Ghent
Bruges
Full dayMedieval canal city
The postcard Flemish city, half an hour up the line: canals, the belfry on the Markt, and Memling and van Eyck in the Groeningemuseum. Far busier than Ghent, which is why plenty of people sleep here and visit there.
Getting there
train
25-30 min by train
Brussels
Full dayCapital city
The Grand-Place, the Magritte and Old Masters museums, art nouveau streets and the EU quarter. Bilingual, scruffier and very different in temper from Flanders, and close enough to go for an afternoon.
Getting there
train
30-35 min by train
Antwerp
Full dayPort city and fashion
Rubens' house and his altarpieces in the cathedral, a railway station regularly called the most beautiful in Europe, the diamond quarter, and a fashion scene that came out of one art academy.
Getting there
train
1 hr by train
Ypres and Flanders Fields
Full dayFirst World War battlefields
A town shelled to rubble and rebuilt exactly as it had been. The In Flanders Fields Museum, the Menin Gate where the Last Post has sounded every evening since 1928, and the cemeteries of the salient fill a long day.
Getting there
train | car | tour
1.5 hr by train via Kortrijk, or by car
Ostend and the coast
Full dayNorth Sea beaches
A long sand beach, a working fishing port and James Ensor's home town, with the coastal tram running the entire Belgian shoreline from the French border to the Dutch one.
Getting there
train
1 hr by train
Leuven
Full dayUniversity town
A late-Gothic town hall crusted with statues, the oldest Catholic university in the world, a square of bars that claims to be the longest in Europe, and the brewery that made Stella on the edge of town.
Getting there
train
1 hr by train
A little history of Ghent
Ghent grew where the Leie meets the Scheldt, around two abbeys founded in the 7th century, and got rich on English wool. By the 14th century it was among the largest cities in Europe north of the Alps, a cloth town whose dependence on English supply pulled it into the Hundred Years' War on England's side under Jacob van Artevelde.
That independence had a price. Charles V was born here in 1500, and when the city refused his war taxes he crushed the revolt in 1540, razed Saint Bavo's Abbey for a fortress, and marched the notables out with nooses round their necks, which is why Ghent people still call themselves noose-wearers. The cloth trade faded, but in 1800 Lieven Bauwens smuggled an English spinning mule into the city and made Ghent the first industrial town on the continent. The university arrived in 1817 and has shaped it since; the mills are now flats, museums and music venues.
Saint Amand founds the abbeys of Saint Bavo and Saint Peter at the river confluence
Philip of Alsace builds the Gravensteen keep in the centre of the city
Jacob van Artevelde sides Ghent with England in the Hundred Years' War
The van Eyck brothers' Ghent Altarpiece is installed in Saint Bavo's
The future Emperor Charles V is born at the Prinsenhof
Charles V crushes the tax revolt, razes Saint Bavo's Abbey and imposes the noose
Lieven Bauwens smuggles in an English spinning mule, starting continental mechanised cotton
The Treaty of Ghent is signed here, ending the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States
The Just Judges panel is stolen from the Altarpiece and never recovered
Know before you go
Payment
Cards everywhere
English
Widely spoken
Wifi
Reliable
Power
Type C / E
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+32
The months our climate read flags to avoid: the wettest, lowest-rated weather of the year.
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FAQs about Ghent
▸ When is the best time to visit Ghent?
Apr-Oct is the good stretch, when the terraces along the water are open and the evenings run long; May, Jun and Sep give you that without the peak crowds. Dec and Jan are dark and wet, though the museums, cafes and the floodlit centre still carry a short winter break.
▸ How many days do you need in Ghent?
Two full days covers the Altarpiece, Gravensteen, the quays and a couple of museums without rushing. A third adds Patershol properly, a boat trip and the museums out at Citadelpark, or frees you up for a day trip to Bruges.
▸ Ghent or Bruges?
Bruges is prettier and far busier; Ghent is bigger, livelier and lived-in, with a student population that stops it feeling staged. Many people base themselves in Ghent and go over to Bruges for a day, half an hour away by train. With two days, do both.
▸ Is Ghent expensive?
Cheaper than Bruges or Brussels for beds and eating out, helped by the student trade, though Belgium is not a cheap country anywhere. Terraces on the central quays cost more than the bars in the student streets, and the museums are good value by western European standards.
▸ Do you need a car in Ghent?
No, and it is a liability. The centre is a low-emission zone built around a circulation plan that keeps through traffic out, so driving is slow and parking awkward. Trains reach every day trip in this guide, and in town you walk, tram or cycle.
▸ What should you eat in Ghent?
Gentse waterzooi, the local chicken-and-cream stew, and stoofvlees cooked in beer. Buy mustard scooped from a barrel on the Groentenmarkt and cuberdons, the purple cones sold from vans nearby. The city's meat-free Thursday campaign has made it the best place in Belgium to eat vegetarian.
More in Belgium
Antwerp
Rubens's home town, the world's diamond counter and the birthplace of Belgian fashion, all inside one walkable Flemish port.
✓ best Apr-OctArdennes (Bastogne)
Belgium's forested south: kayak rivers and castle villages wrapped around the town the 101st Airborne refused to give up.
✓ best May-Jul, SepBruges
Medieval Europe left standing almost whole, because the city went broke in the 1500s and nobody could afford to rebuild it.
✓ best Apr-Oct