I awoke at 8:15, about 20 minutes before my alarm, to a message from the host of the Airbnb walking tour I’d booked at the last minute last night saying she’d come down with a stomach bug and needed to cancel. I was not only not disappointed but I was relieved. It continues to be the right thing for me to not have a schedule of any kind on this trip.

I went down to my first breakfast at Le Flaneur, consisting of coffee, OJ, breads, cheeses, and French toast. Nice. I like this.

I laid back down with my laptop and spent a couple hours on financial business, not only logging transactions but reconciling a couple credit card statements and adding yesterday’s paycheck into my monthly budget. Home tasks continue on the road.

I looked up a self-guided walking tour for Ghent, or Gent as it’s written locally. Both the Airbnb host and the blog post I found recommend starting in Patershol. I Google mapped my route there and headed out around noon.

I just barely missed a bus to the train station, but plenty of them go there. I nearly missed the next one while I was futzing around with the De Lijn app, which was not registering my Current Location. I looked up just in time to raise my arm to flag it. The tickets section of the app was working just fine; I activated one as I boarded and showed the driver.

At the train station, I used a ticket kiosk to select a Standard ticket to Gent, and the machine automatically switched me to a Weekend ticket on this Saturday morning, which costs 50% less and can be used overnight until Sunday if needed. Thank you, smart kiosk. Unfortunately, the payment with my credit card didn’t take; I got a “Technical Error” on the screen. I canceled the transaction and tried using the SNCB (Belgium’s train network) app. No love. Similar error.

Analog, then! I got in line and didn’t have to wait long for a window. I paid €7,80 with my card for a return ticket. So cheap! And I love that the trains are so frequent, you just turn up and go.

Alas, the next train to Gent was canceled due to a collision 😬. The next one was in 20 minutes. I went up to the platform and stood in the sunshine, so grateful for it after the rains in Luxembourg.

It was only 20 minutes and one stop to Gent-Sint-Pieters and then a (crowded) streetcar from the station to the Gravensteen stop, named for the castle beside it and located closest to Patershol.

I walked toward the Patershol neighborhood, known for its eateries. I was ready for lunch but only a couple places came up when I searched for restaurants, so I wasn’t quite sure from the map which streets constituted the neighborhood.

The Airbnb host who canceled sent me some tips from her tour and I was looking at those combined with the blog post I’d found. Not knowing where exactly Patershol was, I moved on to the next suggestion from the host, which was to walk along the Lieve canal in the direction of Rabot. When I realized this was in a direction away from everything else I’d want to see, I turned around and headed back toward Gravensteen where I’d started.

I planned to do the castle tour but I really needed food to start with. I walked the very, very crowded streets, including a shopping main where I wanted to body check every mother$#^&*@ in my way.

This street opened on to a plaza where a singer-guitarist was on a stage playing to a crowd mingled around food stands. I walked to the far side of the plaza, checked some menus, and had a seat at De Postiljon, ordering a beer called Primus (no relation to the band that I know of) from Brouwerij Haacht somewhere in Belgium. The sizes were offered in centiliters, which I’ve never seen before. I learned that 25cl is on the small side, and 33cl is about bottle size, which I got. I also ordered “portie jonge kaas”, or portion of young cheese. Not exactly lunch but I figured I would get hungry again soon and have an opportunity to try another place 🙂

The sun was warm, the beer was light, and the plentiful cheese cubes were served with a few small pickles and hot mustard, which were delightful together. With the people-watching and my refreshments, I was content in a moment that was exactly what I’d envisioned for this trip.

Temporarily satiated, I walked back down the shopping main (grr) and around the corner toward Gravensteen. A woman was carrying two servings of waffles and beer slowly and precariously among multitudes of bodies, and I asked if she needed help. She smiled and said she was almost there. The quick juxtaposition of my misanthropy on the shopping street and my wanting to help a fellow human a moment later amused me.

I arrived at the castle at 16:00 and paid €10,00 for admission and an audio tour. You could spend two hours there, but the audio guide was both cheesy and hammy and I was in this more for the panoramic city views than learning about the history of inhumane imprisonment and torture here, so I was done in an hour.

I bailed on the Airbnb host’s loose guide and focused more on the step-by-step blog post guide, though I had no signal when I left the castle and had a hard time figuring out the next step. The tourist information center was just across the street, and I used their wifi to get my bearings.

The next sight to see was the best! The streets of Graslei and Korenlei run along either side of the canal toward the Sint-Michielsbrug, or St. Michael’s Bridge. The views are amazeballs. Gravensteen in the background ahead, St. Michael’s Church behind the bridge, loads of people sitting along the canal, and three towers of various cathedrals across the bridge and further into town.

For not knowing where the hell I was going when I got here, or for most of the time since then for that matter, I was glad to have made it to this spot. For the first time this trip, I asked a photo-taking stranger if he would kindly take mine (returning the favor for him and his companions). Though I’m generally not into selfies, I took some up on the castle. A selfie would not do here, however.

I walked in the general direction of the rest of the tour but quickly decided that: 1) no further spots were going to compare to that one, and 2) I needed dinner soon and wanted to give Patershol another try.

This time, I found the street full of restaurants that was definitely the Patershol neighborhood. I walked the length and nothing grabbed me. I’d already had Indian and Italian, and I didn’t feel like sushi.

A side street looked curious, and I made a turn to see what else I could find. Spontaneity is what I found.

I encountered a pub in a building interesting enough that I took a photo of it before I went in, which I’m glad of now. I wondered why the door was open once I’d walked in. It clearly had been a pub at one time but now I thought I had found someone’s junk storage.

I walked back out and continued on the side street, finding a group of five or six people, half locals, half travelers, drinking beer on seats in the sun. I must have slowed my roll or looked curious about them in some way, or perhaps they were calling to every passerby. They offered me beer and I said I really needed to find dinner, and two of the three travelers were Americans, and they were about to go to dinner with their Belgian friend and invited me to have a beer with them before we all go out to eat. Well, then!

The proprietor went into his only-appears-to-be-abandoned pub and came back with a Trappist Rochefort for me. Yeeeeaaahhhhh… this’ll do. I signed the guidebook and introduced myself to and met the group. Lisa and Justin are on a 2.5-week trip from Michigan, spending the day with Patrick, whom they met in Guatemala and who lives near the border with Luxembourg. Lieven is the eccentric local celebrity pub owner (I would later tell Erika, my host, this story, and she knows of him), and his friend Derek was half amiable, half grumpy-pants.

We chatted till our beers were gone and took some photos, including one with me and Lisa each sitting on Lieven’s lap. It was more innocuous than it sounds (I think). I was a bit surprised by the €7,00 Lieven asked for the beer, but I figured I was paying for a whole experience. He gave Patrick his dinner recommendation, and Lisa and I chatted while the boys navigated. Or tried to.. they’d had a few more beers, I reckon.

We made it to the brasserie called Keizershof and found it full. With no reservation, we were initially turned away, but Lisa worked some verbal magic and instead we were somehow seated immediately. I had the salmon and a Duvel beer and traded travel stories with Lisa and Justin.

Meanwhile, Patrick searched for a train home and realized there aren’t any. He had a tennis match in the morning and really needed to figure out a solution. He stepped outside to smoke and call some friends for favors. At some point, he figured out a plan that I think involved a train as far as he could go and a friend to either stay with or give him a ride. In any case, he bounced back and was ready to celebrate.

He bought the four of us shots of Jenever, Dutch gin. It smelled like rubbing alcohol, and that was more or less how it tasted, but in a good way? We sipped rather than shot. When in Belgium…

Patrick paid the bill, and the rest of us settled up with him in cash. We exited to the same square where I’d had Primus and cheese, and now the stage was oontz oontz oontz oontz. Turns out this is a Pride festival. Whoo!

We made our way to the stage and got our dance on for a bit while the moon rose above. Goddamn, I love this.

I thought I might need to make the decision whether to responsibly go home and drink water so I wasn’t miserable in the morning or…. go hard, but thankfully we were all on the same page and ready to head to the train station around 21:45. We walked at first and then took advantage of a passing streetcar most of the way there. On the walk from the streetcar to the terminal, Justin turned around to make sure I was still with their group, which was a small gesture but one I very much appreciated as I felt so included.

Lisa and Justin were also heading back to Brugge. A train was arriving in 5 minutes, but they wanted a bit more time to say goodbye to Patrick. I hugged all of them and thanked them for folding me into their group tonight, and Justin said, “That’s what travel is all about.”

I ran to the platform and caught the train home. I was thankful for the De Lijn app as the buses running from Brugge Station to my listing at this time of night were not at all the same ones running during the day.

I got home at 23:00 and phone-browsed in bed.

My physical therapist, Kevin, had told me about a top-rated and exclusive beer made by monks in rural Belgium called Westvleteren 12. I’m not a huge beer nerd, but that was too good to pass up.

I’d researched at home and found that no visitors are allowed at the abbey or the brewery, but a pub across the street called In de vrede serves it.

Unfortunately, it’s not easy to get to. A two-hour train journey would get me as far as Poperinge and then there either is or is not a bus from there to the pub.

Researching again now, it seems I would need to rent a bike to get from the train station to the pub. I didn’t bother looking to see whether there are any bicycle rentals near the train station. It now seemed silly to drink “Westy” 12 in a pub there when I could drink it in a pub here, in Brugge.

Ah! That meant that I could visit Brussels on Monday instead of tomorrow, which can now be a rest day, i.e. nothing in particular to see or do and time to journal. Exactly the point of playing this trip by ear.

I slept at 00:30.