Last weekend we went to a new town in Belgium – Ghent. One of Jeremy’s co-workers lives there and wanted to show us around the city. Many thanks to Michael and his girlfriend Laura for giving us the royal tour! Ghent is has a feel of modern living in a historical environment. Everything around you is hundreds of years old, but the people there bustle through it in every day life. It is beautiful in an old way.
My favorite stop in Ghent was an old castle that is in the middle of the downtown. The original wooden building was built in the 9th century, but the stone structure you see today was started in the 11th century. Can you imagine? This building has lasted hundreds of years.
The family that lived here were the Counts of Flanders, a medieval country that includes some of current France, Belgium and southwest Netherlands. Today the residents refer to it as the Flemish region, which is the Dutch speaking section of Belgium.
Anyway, this family and the town managed the production of wool, which brought in wealth and prosperity. And with wealth comes those who want to take that wealth. So the royal family eventually had to build a castle wall and a moat around the whole structure to protect themselves.
Castle Life
As you can see by the picture, the castle tour was self guided with audio information. The staff gives you a phone like instrument that you listen to in each area of the castle. Here I am in the Lady of the house’s room. Her name was Elizabeth. The room given to the Countess wasn’t very big compared to the rest of the rooms. But it was all her own I suppose. One of the focal points in each room was the fire place. Just before this castle was built, society still made fires in the center of rooms, leaving a hole in the roof for the smoke to exit. But the rooms were still smokey and it rained and snowed on the people’s heads. So someone eventually came up with the idea to move the fire to an outside wall, create a shaft above it, and let the smoke escape through a narrow corridor instead of a big hole in the roof. This invention was top notch, and this castle was considered the best of the best due to each room having a fire place.
This room was on the ground floor, and hosted social events, large court meetings and trials, and even some death sentences. I loved the large pillars and multi arched ceiling. This was one of the biggest rooms in the castle, and one of the fanciest and most impressive. On the wall hung several different kinds of swords and axes used for fighting and punishment. The audio for this room told about 5 specific executions that happened either in this room or just outside of it in the courtyard. So interesting.
And no castle tour is complete with out the dungeon, or torture chamber. This room was in the basement, under the ground. I can’t imagine how they could see very well down there. If you look closely, you can see some of the tools they used for torture. And there a large fire place that can fit, well, a human to put it bluntly. I don’t really like to think about these parts of our history, but they happened and the stories should be told.
This picture was taken from the very top of the castle, the high tower. You can see the canal with boats in the distance. The cathedral on the left side is beautiful too. Who knows what the the view was like several hundred years ago. Obviously the buildings were not in view, and maybe the canal wasn’t in that place. Europe is known for directing water where they want it to go, so the canal may or may not have been in it’s current position.
I will end with more pictures of the castle. It was so fun to picture what life was like at court, and what it might have been like to wander around the courtyard if invited in. I don’t mean to give history lessons in my blogs, I just get so excited about what I learn that I want to share it. I will also post pictures from the boat tour we took of the city.
Let me know if there is an aspect of life here in the Netherlands that you want to hear about. I would love getting ideas for blogs from you all!
