The hook
Bruges's bigger, grittier neighbour and, for many, the better one: a medieval Flemish city just as handsome but full of students and real life, home to the extraordinary Van Eyck altarpiece.
01Why it's worth it
Ghent has the same ingredients as Bruges, a rich medieval merchant past, canals, guild houses, and a skyline of towers, but because it is a working university city rather than a museum piece, it feels alive rather than staged, with a strong food and nightlife scene and far fewer coaches. Its treasure is the Ghent Altarpiece, or the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, an early-15th-century masterpiece by the Van Eyck brothers whose realism startled its own age; it hangs in St Bavo's Cathedral and has been stolen, dismantled, and fought over more than almost any painting in history, with one panel still missing. Add a moody riverside castle you can climb, a row of gabled guild houses along the old harbour, and a genuinely local atmosphere, and Ghent quietly out-delivers its famous rival.
02How to experience it
See the Van Eyck altarpiece in St Bavo's, climb the Gravensteen castle, and walk the Graslei harbour front. Then let the student city carry you: eat well, drink Belgian beer, and enjoy that it is a real place rather than a set. Easy to combine with Bruges.
From the locals
Ghent is the consensus pick of the Belgians and long-stay visitors in the r/travel country thread, and the reasoning is always comparative: "my favourite city is Ghent. It is not as overrun by tourists as Bruges, but perhaps just as beautiful — and more charming than Antwerp and Brussels."
That sentence is the whole argument for coming here. Ghent has the same guild houses along the same kind of water, a castle in the middle of town, and a student population that keeps it a working city rather than a preserved one. The person who wrote it had travelled Flanders extensively and was not trying to be contrarian; it is simply what people who know all four cities tend to conclude.