Ghent: Day 1

Here we are on our travels again.   Just a short break in Ghent, Belgium, a city we haven't visited before.

We flew from Norwich to Amsterdam and then took the train to Ghent via Antwerp taking in some amazing station architecture on the way.

We befriended a lady from Maryland on the platform in Amsterdam who was also going to Ghent.  She was worried about the connection in Antwerp but unfortunately she did not have a seat reservation so she didn't board our coach and we did not see her again.  I hope she made it!

We missed the connection in Antwerp as our train from Amsterdam was late and we came in on platform 23 and had to find platform 1 via several escalators. Anyway, it gave us the chance to admire the station.  

We had our picnic lunch on the Antwerp to Ghent part of the journey and then took a taxi to the apartment, which turned out to be another good Airbnb find.

Flat, inside and outside and the view

It's a large lounge/dining area with good kitchen and bathroom cunningly built in below the very high ceilings.   Our first discovery was that whoever used the dishwasher last didn't know you had to take the plastic off the tablet and had no idea about packing it.  So we had a dishwasher full of dirty things including a frying pan stuck with egg wedged in with lots of other stuff...and a broken glass.   Still, we have now sorted that!  We made a basic shopping list and set off for the supermarket.  Well, the temperature on the fan inside the flat said 29º outside it was a great deal hotter!  A real scorcher of a day!  We found the supermarket eventually and made our purchases and then returned to a cafe near the flat for a cold drink.    Slightly refreshed we set off again in search of a wine shop, on the way finding a good bookshop for a map and a more interesting supermarket where we bought wine.

Like many places that have had no rain for weeks and weeks, the small part of Ghent we have experienced so far is a little grubby but there is no traffic and just trams and bicycles to watch out for crossing the road.   We brought our purchases back to the flat and collapsed for a while.   We hadn't spotted anywhere to eat on our shopping trip so we went back to the Italian style cafe where we had had a drink earlier and had burrata and tomato starter and then spaghetti a l'arrabiata.  Very spicy and a huge portion!   When we got back my foot had swollen in the heat and I had a cold shower for the first time in my life!    Peter continued with his researches and I hope he has come up with a plan for Day 2.   It was a hot and sticky night!  And I got bitten!