Ghent

Ghent took me by surprise, it was small and charming and left me no choice but to completely fall in love with it. Ghent is about an hour and a half bus ride away from Antwerp and is home to the incredibly famous, Mystic Lamb, better known as the Ghent Altarpiece. Again, anyone that has taken any form of an art history class will most likely recall seeing and studying this piece, but more on that later.

We began our time in Ghent walking down to the river to have a city tour by boat. I love boat tours, they are so relaxing and you get a unique view of the city.

We had a local Belguan guide who was hilarious, he had a very dry sense of humor and would say the funniest things with a straight face. He definitely made our ride a lot of fun.

After our lovely boat ride, which thank the heavens, didn't get ruined by rain even though the skies threatened a downpour the entire time we were out on the water, it was time to head to the church and stand before the Mystic Lamb!

First, we stopped in a tiny alcove that has a replica of the altarpiece where our guide could spend some time explaining this beautiful piece of art since the real piece is in a tiny cramped room and is under glass thus making it hard to point out specific details. Also pictures aren't allowed of the real altarpiece, so I took pictures of this one instead.

Another gorgeous pulpit

After we had spent as much time admiring the real altarpiece as we desired, we had a little free time before it was time to head back to the port. However, by now a huge downpour had started and the cobblestone streets were quickly filling up with puddles. We were left with no choice, we needed to get some hot chocolate and waffles to warm us up.

We tried finding a place with Leige waffles, but weren't able to find any in our frantic search for a warm dry place so we were forced to enjoy some more Brussels style waffles.

In my old age, I have developed this odd habit of getting insanely sick if I sit in the front of the bus on our European adventures. It's true, this seems a little backwards from what would seem normal, but the back of the bus is much friendlier on my tummy. Luckily, on this tour, no one else seems to love sitting in the back so I get the entire back row to myself so I can lay down, which helps my fragile tummy even more. So I throw on my headphones, turn on the tunes (the soundtrack of this trip has been Kip Moore's new album, Wilds Ones, I just can not get enough of it.) and drift off to sleep as we are driven to our beautiful and wonderful destinations.

Tonight's towel animal definitely gave the koala bear a run for it's money. I was welcomed home by this truly adorable bat hanging from my ceiling. Ena's attention to detail with the adorable black paper eyes on all his creations, brought me waaay too much joy every night.