Birthday trip to Brussels and Ghent

Had my birthday yesterday and took a 90 min drive north. Belgium is divided culturally so that the north speaks Dutch while the south speaks French. North of Brussels the road signage changes to Dutch making it difficult to know exactly what they mean. Brussels from our experience was huge .....gridlocked, and busy like any city so we didn't get out of the car. It must have something worth looking at but we didn't find it....it basically added an unwanted 45 min to our trip north to Ghent.

Ghent on the other hand exuded character and charm. It was full of people on bikes as you would expect from a scene from the Netherlands. Crazy traffic though. The bikes ride anywhere....across in front of you etc....and cars try to squeeze past you all the time....but it all happens in slow motion....very different to Paris.   I made a few mistakes...signs were hard to see and understand and at one point I realised I was the only traffic. I had missed a 'no entry' sign (which is essentially a blue arrow) and proceeded into a large town square full of people and continued driving along cobble stones past people sitting at cafe tables ....masses of people around the car making a U-turn difficult so I proceeded for a while....which was a mistake and then turned around. We were the centre of much attention. This is the square below once we had found a park and returned. It is the medieval hub of town rather than the business district and sports all sorts of shops that spill into this enormous square. There was a concert setting up as we strolled through.

So my birthday present was an hours guided boat tour around the canals....this was cheaper than lunch at McDonalds!

The pub behind Jacob's head sports over 100 Belgian beers

These gondolas was brought here (I think from Bangladesh?) for a restaurant. An inventive way to dine!

 This castle is one of the reasons I decided to come to Ghent. The original owner (10th Century) took a trip to Damascus and saw a castle he liked, so this one is said to resemble it. I would never have thought there were castles like this in Damascus? This one has been fully restored but we missed the last tour of the day.....managed to see a little bit of the foyer though....amazing!  

 There were some buildings with murals over looking the canals. Click to enlarge this one....very strange! Not something we would see back home....not on a building anyway!

I had promised myself we would visit a dedicated chocolate shop. You can imagine what it smells like inside. We were too tired to eat them last night so I am looking forward to our chocolate feast tonight. The shop keeper stands with a white gloved hand and you select individual chocolates to purchase....or you pick a box size and ask for an assortment which we did.