Day 6: Ghent: Castle of the Counts

Our day in Ghent felt more touristy than the other cities we visited in that we had to stand in line for a couple of minutes to buy tickets to the Castle of the Counts. If you plan to visit when school is closed, I'd recommend buying your tickets online in advance.

After purchasing our tickets we were directed to the gift shop to pick up our audio guides. There are two options (both in English): comedy or dry. Comedy was about 90 minutes long, the dry one only a hour. Unlike our visit to the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, we both opted for the same tour (comedy). 

Castle of the Counts is a Medieval fortress in the center of Ghent. It is completely not ADA compliant with narrow stone staircases, uneven floors, and (my "favorite") a sharp drop-off without a banister (had I taken one more step backwards I would have fallen several floors and really hurt myself, thankfully Don said something before I did that). 

The comedy version mostly shared the life of Philip of Alsace who had the castle built in 1180 AD, complete with a moat and a prison. I should have taken notes, instead I listened and took pictures. The castle was all decked out for Christmas with greens in every room, except where the torture took place. I am so glad we went in December.

Here are my pictures:

I know this is a lot of pictures, so I'll stop here and pick up in another post.