When Arrivals go Bad....Ghent

You know when you arrive in a country and nothing seems to look approachable, nice or welcoming? That happened to us in Ghent, Belgium.  After a hairy taxi ride by the gruffist looking woman I have seen, this was our hotel, that stunk of smoke and grime.   It was 20 minutes from the festival, and the towels were grey....

So we walked into the old town to see if we could find another hotel (and have thank goodness - lucky when the town grows from 500,000 to 1.2m at festival time).   We then saw that the festival definitely caters for the male festival goer!  Why are women so neglected when it comes to providing 'faciliies' for us?  Where are we supposed to go? No porta-loos anywhere else!

But once installed in the comfort of an expedia rate hotel (phew) we wandered around and saw why the Ghent festival is thought of as the best festival in Europe. 10 days - more stages than I have yet counted, a combination of puppetry, poetry, street theatre, visual arts, physical theatre, dance, comedy...and music music music (from Euro Pop, to indie, to one of the best world music fests ever to 80s covers and a full techno area! It all starts at 2.30pm, goes till midnight each day and is all free.  And there are bars everywhere - and the people don't get scary drunk.  Its mellow.

Night photos to come!