Gent: Tips for a trip to Belgium’s hipster city

Medieval castle moats and buildings next to comic and vintage shops, street art and an exploding Castro scene: / Gent Travel Guide

The city of Ghent in Flanders not only casts a spell over students. With a few tips and background knowledge, the weekend trip to Belgium’s university town becomes a very special experience.

“There’s always something going on in Ghent,” say Belgians who live outside of Ghent. And they are right about that. As the third largest city in Belgium, Ghent with its 264,000 inhabitants is a melting pot of culture and subculture. Whether comics, street art or slow fashion, everyone will find their place and niche here. And it is precisely this mix that makes it so exciting to explore the Belgian student city. If you take your time for a weekend, you will come back inspired.

Fun fact: Ghent University has been around for over 200 years (founded in 1817). Well over 40,000 students visit you, including over 2,000 from other EU countries and worldwide. Incidentally, Flemish (Dutch) is spoken in Ghent, but most residents are also fluent in English, French and German. Just Belgium!

Historical architecture for medieval fans

It couldn’t be more medieval: Gravensteen Castle, which dates back to the 9th century and belongs to the Counts of Flanders, is an impressive historical sight right in the lively center of Ghent. A visit here is a must: Gravensteen Castle. By the way, it is a so-called moated castle, as it is surrounded by a moat on all sides.

If you want to see even more of the city’s history, you don’t have to try very hard: Ghent is literally exploding with medieval buildings. Worth seeing are e.g. Cathedral, Belfry (bell tower) and of course the Korenmarkt with a variety of historical buildings. A picturesque starting point for a tour of discovery: the Café Revue right next to the opera house, from where you can comfortably stroll along the canals.

The best veggie and breakfast addresses

It’s not for nothing that Ghent has the reputation of being the “veggie capital of Europe”: in fact, in the student city you will find a large number of selected vegetarian and vegan gastro locations that you should try out if you eat sustainably. With Greenway Ghent on the Nederkouter and Mana on the Kortrijksepoortstraat, on the way from the train station to the city center you pass two noteworthy locations that serve excellent veggie burgers.

In addition, in this corner of Ghent there are a lot of hip locations for breakfast – for every taste. A good start to the day is, for example, the creative and healthy porridges at Oats Day Long or the all-day egg, waffle and pancake brunch at Luv L’Oeuf (both Nederkouter). It should just be an excellent coffee while strolling through the city? Coffee connoisseurs will find real specialty coffee at Goya Coffee, from Iced Latte to SlowCoffee. Not far from there, the Stek also invites you to meditative coffee enjoyment with “Coffee & Plants”.

Paradise for vintage shoppers & street art

Vintage fashion, if you like it, can be found on almost every corner in the university town of Ghent. Among countless boutiques, the Vintage Factory, Think Twice and the MOOD recycle store, located in the Nederkouter, are good places to go. The very photogenic graffiti alley, which every visitor to Ghent should have seen, is also bright and colorful. It is located in a small side street between Hoogport and Onderstraat and looks completely different every time you visit Ghent. If you want to see or photograph even more street art, you can take a long walk along the creatively designed house walls. A street art map published by Ghent helps with this.

Hotspots for nerds: comics, skating & more

No matter what other soft spot you have, Ghent has something to suit almost every special taste. Among the comic book shops, De Port strips is particularly centrally located between the train station and the city center. Although most of the books here are in Flemish (Dutch), this is where you’ll be the first to discover the latest comic gems, even before they’re translated abroad. Belgium is at least as famous for its comic culture as it is for its beer.

Other special interest locations are the numerous skate shops such as Curb, Slam or Sliding Tiger and matching skating rinks such as the Skatepark Zuid and the Keizerpark, where young bladers and skaters regularly romp around and put their impressive performances and courses to the test.

The cat café DreamCATchers, which is well hidden in the Schepenhuisstraat, invites cat lovers to linger: if you chat with the owners here, you can learn a lot about cat ownership and take home a souvenir for the cat.

Just around the corner, in the Wunderkammer, local and exotic relics from bygone times find a second home. Whether Balinese ghost masks, peacock chairs, stuffed flamingos or Chinese fabric lamps – the beautiful arrangements amaze the eye and are worth at least one photo – even if there are no souvenirs to take home.

Even more insider gastro tips and places to “arrive”

A highlight is to end the day sitting on the banks of the Graslei quay on the Leie, one of the two rivers that flow through Ghent. Lots of students frolic here in the evenings and enjoy their after-work beer. If you haven’t eaten anything by then, you’ll find Manhattan Burger and other good restaurants to choose from. Asian cuisine is also available on almost every corner in Ghent: ramen and bento boxes, for example, are served at the Miss Yu Japanese Noodle Bar. Also good: Zuru Zuru Ramen. Those who prefer things to be more contemplative will find more beautiful green spaces to relax around Gravensteen Castle on the moat.