Ghent

Hello, nice to see you here again.

We enjoyed Ghent so much that we ended up staying for 10 nights.  The city is simply stunning and there's always something happening.

The Friday market was OK, but not a patch on French markets we've been to before. On Saturday the market square played host to a high jump competition. The guys were easily clearing 5.4m

The next day everything had been cleared away and the square reinvented as the Sunday Flower Market.

You wouldn't have thought that it was the same place.

The variety of flowers was amazing, but my favourites had to be the peonies 

We've really struggled to find a decent waterways guide to Belgium since we've been here. The ones on sale at the lock had sold out but we managed to find a shop over the other side of Ghent called Atlas & Zanzibar that only sells travel guides and maps.

The owner was very friendly and helpful and encouraged us to open and read any maps that may be of interest with no obligation to buy.  We eventually found exactly what we needed in the waterways section and luckily it was in English as well 😀

This is the inside of the Vleesmarkt (Great Butchers Hall). I was expecting it to be a "proper" meat market but it's basically a posh restaurant that cures and sells hams as well. The Hams are cured in salt, covered in melted lard and then hung from the rafters for at least 9 months to ripen. Very nice, and not a fly in sight!

One day during our walkabout, we came across Werregarenstraat which is a street full of graffiti.

Anyone can buy a can of spray paint and come and pretend to be an artist

Unfortunately there wasn't much evidence of Banksy here.

 Almost everyday we came across a different band playing in a different square. You could never say that there's nothing to see or do in Ghent!

The weather has been amazing, although Chico struggled a bit when the temperature reach 34'C and we could only tempt him to eat by putting his food in one of our bowls and pouring a bit of salad dressing on it.

One downside of the good weather is that the water levels are now very low and locks are only being operated for commercial vessels.

We left Ghent this morning and are now moored in Deinze . We had intended travelling in a ring, ending up back in Ghent in July for their annual Festival but we've just had notification that our route is a none commercial canal and all locks have been closed until further notice.

Back to the planning 😕

Hope to see you again soon, Bye for now