Belgium - Ghent

Medieval Beauty
I let the Costa Ricans make the plans - told them I'd go along with anything.  Barely 20 hours later we were on a bus out of Brussels, packed in with tourists from Cambodia, India, Spain and Germany.  First stop was Ghent.  I could hardly believe my eyes, just an hour away was this gorgeous Flemish town, bringing the ugliness of the capital into sharper relief.

Our tour guide was a glum fellow in a tight blue coat and matching scarf.  We were to follow him and not wander, he warned.  He walked slowly ahead of us, leading us through the city, holding aloft a folded orange umbrella.  He spoke in both English and Spanish and explained how Ghent was a prosperous town in the middle ages due to the wool trade.

Later in the 1800's an enterprising Flemish thief smuggled out of England the industrial design for the weaving machine.  They imported English wool via a network of canals and the textile industry flourished.

The architecture is a mix of medieval, gothic and renaissance.

After our guided tour we split up and spent our thirty minutes of free time drinking coffee, buying chocolate and souvenirs.

The only modern building was a strange, wooden, butterfly-shaped barn.  It's an open air concert hall, shaped for optimal sonic quality.