Explore Ghent

The Belfry of Ghent is a 91-metre tower built between 1313 and 1380, the tallest belfry in Belgium and part of the UNESCO-listed Belfries of Belgium and France. A gilded dragon tops the spire, the tower holds a carillon, and visitors climb its floors to a walkway with views over the city; the Cloth Hall adjoins it.

Saint Bavo's Cathedral is the Gothic seat of the Diocese of Ghent, built from around 1274 on the site of a 10th-century chapel, with an 89-metre west tower. It holds the Ghent Altarpiece, the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, shown in a visitor centre, and Charles V was baptised here in 1500.

St. Nicholas' Church is a parish church beside the Korenmarkt in Ghent, begun in the early 13th century in Scheldt Gothic of blue-grey Tournai stone. Its central crossing tower served as a watchtower and held the town bells before the Belfry was built, guilds added side chapels, and it houses a Cavaillé-Coll organ.

The Graslei and the Korenlei are two quays facing each other across the Leie in the centre of Ghent, the site of the medieval port where grain was traded. Both are lined with guild houses and warehouses from the Middle Ages to the 18th century, restored before the 1913 World's Fair, and form a protected cityscape.

Design Museum Gent occupies Hotel De Coninck, a town house built in 1755 for a linen merchant on the Jan Breydelstraat, together with a wing from 1992 and a new timber-framed wing by Carmody Groarke, ATAMA and RE-ST with a rooftop terrace. The collection ranges from fourteenth-century chairs to contemporary Belgian and international design.

The Gravensteen is a moated castle in the centre of Ghent, built in 1180 by Philip of Alsace and the residence of the Counts of Flanders until 1353. It later served as a court, prison, mint and cotton mill, was restored between 1893 and 1903, and visitors walk the gatehouse, keep, residence and ramparts.

STAM is Ghent's city museum, opened in 2010 on the Bijloke site in the buildings of the medieval Bijloke abbey, joined to a new glass entrance building by city architect Koen Van Nieuwenhuyse. The Story of Ghent traces the city's history room by room, and visitors can walk across a 300 m² aerial photograph of Ghent.

S.M.A.K. is Ghent's municipal museum of contemporary art, opened in 1999 in the renovated former casino building in the Citadelpark, opposite the Museum of Fine Arts. Its collection covers international art after 1945, from Francis Bacon and Andy Warhol to Panamarenko, and Jan Fabre's sculpture The Man Who Measures the Clouds stands on the roof.

The Museum of Fine Arts Ghent stands on the east side of the Citadelpark, in a building designed by city architect Charles van Rysselberghe around 1900. Its collection of some 9,000 works runs from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, centred on Flemish art, with paintings by Hieronymus Bosch, Peter Paul Rubens and James Ensor.