Ghent

Ghent gets consistently overshadowed by Bruges, twenty minutes away by train, despite holding a comparably well-preserved medieval center — canals lined with ornate guild houses, a genuine castle, and Gothic church spires — at a fraction of the crowds. Most travelers simply never hear Ghent mentioned as an alternative, which is precisely why the ones who do make the trip tend to come away surprised.

Graslei and Korenlei, the twin quaysides facing each other across Ghent's central canal, hold a row of guild houses dating largely to the city's medieval wealth as a textile trading center — a view frequently compared to Bruges' most photographed corners, minus the density of tour groups.

Gravensteen Castle, a genuine moated medieval fortress right in the city center, dates to the 12th century and remains substantially intact, giving visitors an actual castle to explore rather than a reconstructed approximation — narrow stone stairways, battlements, and a small but unflinching museum covering the counts of Flanders who once ruled from it.

Saint Bavo's Cathedral holds the Ghent Altarpiece, a monumental early 15th-century polyptych by Jan van Eyck widely regarded as one of the most important paintings in the history of Western art — and also one of the most eventful, having survived attempted destruction, Napoleonic seizure, Nazi looting during World War II, and a still-unsolved 1934 theft of one of its panels, a mystery that remains formally open with the Belgian police to this day.

Unlike Bruges, which leans heavily on its preserved-for-tourism identity, Ghent functions as a genuine university city with a large student population, giving its historic streets a livelier, more lived-in energy after dark — a real contrast that makes the two cities worth pairing rather than choosing between.