Seli's Noodlebar in Ghent

Not only finding a place for breakfast but also a place for lunch was very difficult. I mean, if we didn't have any preference, we could have found one. However, we wanted to have a nice experience. First, we tried to find Du Progres, a French/Belgian/Dutch cuisine restaurant, but couldn't locate it even though we had their address. Second, we walked around a certain area that a local vendor suggested as "a place that locals eat" but didn't see any places that looked interesting. Third, we visited a restaurant that we found on tripadvisor, but we were informed that all the tables were booked for the day's lunch.

We almost gave up and kept walking the town for sight-seeing. Still we were hungry, of course. J tried again to look for a place to eat nearby online and found a place called Seli's Noodlebar. I didn't expect that we were going to have an Asian noodle soup bowl in Belgium. In fact, it turned out very well. The noodle restaurant serves their homemade noodles. I had noodles soup with vegetables and J had noodles soup with roasted duck. The simple plain noodles and broth were what my tummy just needed after a lot of walks on the chilly day. J seemed to enjoyed his dish, too. It was late lunch time. The restaurant was quiet and peaceful. Actually we were the only customers in the restaurant.

Seli's Noodlebar was located near Saint Bavo's Cathedral (Sint Baafskathedraal), a 89-meter-tall Gothic cathedral, where displayed one of the greatest artistic masterpieces of Belgium, the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb by Hubert and Jan van Eyck. We spent a good amount of time to look at the important early Northern Renaissance altarpiece by listening to the audio guide that explained in details. It was very interesting!

The cathedral stood facing Belfry and Cloth Hall (Belfort en Lakenhalle), a 91-meter-tall 14th century bell and watch tower. Behind the bell and watch tower, there was St. Nicholas' Church (Sint-Niklaaskerk), a 90-meter-tall 13th century Gothic church that was built to replace an earlier Romanesque church.

These medieval skyscrapers standing side by side within the small area of the Old Town created a majestic and unique landscape of Ghent. There was also an interesting modern side of the town. The street, named Werregarenstraatje, or Graffiti Street is "a public canvas for young street artists."

Both side of the walls were full of many layers of colorful graffiti.

We ran into a group of young children who had a paint spray in hand and wore a spray paint/dust mask and a yellow safety vest. They were with a few adult supervisors. It must have been a sort of school activity to let kids be street artists. I thought it was cute and fun. I hope the little artists enjoyed being wild and creative.

The other modern side was a network of trams. Tram rails seemed neatly organized in the Old Town. Perhaps, that makes very light car traffic, which enabled us to freely walk around. We used tram from the train station to the Old Town and vise versa. It was an easy ride and a quite convenience.

Here was Saint Micheal on the St Michael's Bridge near Saint Michael's Church (Sint-Michielskerk). We have been seeing at least one statue of St Micheal in Ghent as well as Bruges and Brussels.

To be continued...