Gallavanting in Ghent

So, after the disastrous Palermo trip, I was dying to get out of town for the remainder of our long Columbus day weekend. The fates seemed to be working against this vacation: we originally were scheduled to spend the weekend in Champagne, but were unable to find a bed and breakfast. Then, hotels.com messed up our second choice hotel near Bruges and Ghent. On the upside, we were offered a huge upgrade to the four star Ghent Marriott at no additional cost to us. The Marriott is right on the river in Ghent, and has preserved the three antique facades.
It was rather shocking walking into the old Dutch facade of the hotel to be greeted by the ultra-modern chic interior of the Marriott. Kudos to the architect...I was impressed:
And while I'm sure few of you are incredibly interested in how our hotel room looked, we still had to take a picture because this hotel stay was such a treat. I want to find out where they get their bedding. It was heaven. Must be several thousand count sheets, with feather comforters. When we were tired of looking around the town, the hotel had a deal where you could pay 20 euros and have unlimited access to the pay-per-view movies. We caught up on several movies that we'd missed this summer (including Ocean's 13 and Spider Man 3).Ghent is famous for the 'three towers of Ghent,' pictured below. On the right is Saint Nicholas' Church, built 12th-14th century in pure Schelde-gothic style. Next, in the middle is the Belfort (13th century) and Lace Hall (15th century). The Belfort ("belfry") was a symbol of the power of the guilds and the city. Finally on the left is Saint Baaf Cathedral, built 1274-1569. The emperor Charles V was baptized in this church. And I am sure that Ghent is famous for many other reasons, but our first night there we were only interested in getting food. On the way to find food, we made a brief stop when we discovered a Champagne bar (since I had Champagne on the mind from our canceled trip, we seized the moment):
Dave tried a 'blanc de blanc' which is made only from Chardonnay grapes. I started with a Rose. Then, we noticed that they offered half bottles of a 'demi-sec' champagne. With my sweet tooth, it's no surprise that I enjoyed the sweeter version of the champagne (sorry to all my French friends who have tried to nurture my wine palate and insist that Brut is the only sophisticated champagne selection).After three glasses of champagne I was feeling quite a bit better, and we continued on to dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant which had great food. The only down-side were the random street performers who were allowed to play (very badly, I might add) and interrupt to ask for money while we attempted to enjoy a quiet meal.
Last stop of the night was checking out the river Lys (easy enough since our hotel is right off the river front), and the reflections at sundown were beautiful!The next day we started off our trek after a quasi-good rest (the sheets were wonderful, but I haven't been sleeping too well, or particularly late). This is kind of neat...it's a miniature staircase that starts half-way up the side of a building and leads to a blue glass box that doesn't appear to have any openings or doors. We don't know what it is, but figured it was some sort of art statement, and thought it would be fun to share.
Other interesting artistic touches were found around town, including these neat statues at the top of a downtown facade. We don't know the story behind them, but what a great picture! It looks like there might actually be people dancing around on the roof a la Mary Poppins.Next up was a river cruise on the Lys, complete with a nice tour of the Count's castle. I was really excited when I first saw what appeared to be a fortified medieval castle in Ghent, but was disappointed to learn that it was a fantasy reconstruction completed in the 1800's and has little to do with the historical castle that once stood there. Oh well. It was still neat seeing the view and walking the ramparts.
Here's a picture of Dave on the river with the neat buildings and hotel in the background. We topped off the weekend with some lace and chocolate shopping, and a fabulous meal at a Moroccan restaurant, complete with authentic mint tea at the end of the meal and no uninvited street performers.

Thank you Dave for making all the arrangements, and thank you to hotels.com for messing up our original reservation so we could stay at the fabulous Marriott at a bargain rate.