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*

Summer Holidays Frenzy!

Black Saturday, the busiest day on the European route ever recorded: Yup, it's official, the summer holidays has begun with a big bang! Today while we were on the way to Gent, Belgium, we heard over the radio that there was 870km of traffic in France!!! In Austria and Switzerland, the traffic was at its peak by the Alps tunnels. Holiday goers have to wait for 6 hours to get into the tunnel en route to their holiday destination!

Even during our drive to Gent, we saw so many cars and caravans with their family, packed to the brim (some you can't even see the back mirror anymore) on the highway en route to their holiday destinations. And because of the global economy crisis, more people are opting to spend their summer holidays in neighbouring countries instead of travelling anywhere further. Some of the favourite holiday destinations: Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Spain. Geez, I just hope in 2 weeks time, the holiday traffic in Europe will ease up a bit cos we're planning a weekend trip to Paris!