Ghent

Our second stop was in Ghent, Belgium. There are three official languages in Belgium; Dutch, French, and German. The maps may be printed in one language, the highway signs in a different language. That is not problem when Ghent appears as Gent on a map. Mechelen on the map and Malines on the highway sign is a bit trickier. Some of the town names are seemingly unrelated when written in different official languages.

Like other cities on our trip, Ghent is a mixture of the old with the new.

Here is a typical cityscape.

2013-07-04_09.08.50Ghent is known for its lace. This is real applied mathematics. Imagine a pattern that includes moving these objects by hand one at a time. When a mistake is discovered, reverse the pattern for an hour or so to get back to where the error was made, correct it and move on.

2013-07-05_05.26.06The last leg of our trip would take us to Bruges.