Our little Gent trip

Today, my Hubs and I decided to take a short drive (1.5 hours drive from Rotterdam) to Gent, Belgium. We have not been there ourselves so we always been wanting to take a trip down and finally we did. It was such a great sunny day throughout the day, it's unbelievable considering we'd some pretty wet weather for the past few weeks.

Gent, a smaller town as compared to Antwerp and Brussels and it is the city before Brugge (another favourite touristic city in Belgium). Though it's not as popular as the latter, Gent has its own charm. Its canal running in the city centre was once in the medieval time, an important harbour. Now, it serves as a touristic purpose for tourists to take a cruise on the canal. One of the few highlights of our trip there were the St. Bravo Cathederal, the Town Hall, Belfry Tower, Korenlei and Gaslei, to name a few.

Gent is a nice, relaxing city minus the hustle and bustle of Antwerp and Brussels. It has also it's own shopping streets so if you want to spend a nice time shopping without the crowd in Belgium, I would recommend Gent :). The people speak Flemish (Belgium Dutch) and for me it was a bit difficult to understand with the unique accent. However, people are friendly there. We'd a long lunch in one of the cafes, watching people passing by and I noticed that the ladies in Gent were pretty slim/skinny side ;).

Nevertheless, the next time we go back to Gent, we will further explore the nice city since this time, we did spent some time in the shops :P :P *guitly as charged*

A Little Town Called Eijsden

Last weekend my parents-in-law suggested that we should have a drink after dinner in this little town called Eijsden. Eijsden is a cosy and close-community town in the southern part of Limburg province in the Netherlands. I've not been there myself and I was curious. We took a short drive to Eijsden via the fields. With good spring weather, the sun does not set until 9pm or so hence we still had plenty of sun even at 8pm :) The cafe that we parked ourselves for our nightcap was a very nice and cosy place overlooking the river. We sat by the terrace enjoying the nice view and good company of each other. Trust my dear parents-in-law to know the best cafes around here as they did their cycling around this neighbourhood. One can even catch a glimpse of Belgium on the other side of the river. After a nice 'gezellig' (cosy) drink, my father-in-law mentioned that there is a nice castle around this neighbourhood and that peaked my interest. I love castles! I'd seen many when we were in Loire Valley, south of France last year :)

We make a slight detour and head to Eijsden Castle. Though the castle itself is not very big, the castle has a bailey and a big garden. Eijsden castle is L-shaped and was built in Maasland-Renaissance style. It is now a private residence of a noble Belgium family.