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The Chocolate Tours Are Actually Worth It

During both visits, I booked the same chocolate tour with Charlie Tours. Usually I avoid doing the exact same thing twice, but this experience was genuinely that good.

The tour lasts around two hours and takes you through some of the most important parts of the city while stopping for chocolate tastings along the way. Across both tours, I sampled different chocolates and heard different stories from the local guides, which made the experiences feel unique each time.

I learned more about Ghent's history on that tour than I expected to, and it never felt like one of those painfully scripted tourist experiences. It felt more like walking around the city with a very knowledgeable local friend who also keeps handing you chocolate.

If Charlie Tours is booked out (it does happen on weekends), the Viator chocolate tour covers the same ground with a similar small-group feel. Or for a longer afternoon, the private chocolate-and-beer tour combines the two things Ghent is best at into one walk.

And honestly? I don't think a trip to Ghent is complete without it.

Ghent Is Best Seen From the Water

As someone who lives in Amsterdam, canal cruises don't usually excite me. Whenever friends or family visit us, though, a canal tour is still one of the first things we do together because seeing a city from the water completely changes your perspective of it. Ghent is no different.

The guided boat trip through medieval Ghent ended up being one of my favourite parts of the trip.

Seeing the medieval buildings from the water makes the city feel even more cinematic, and it helps you understand how connected everything once was during Ghent's trading peak. Walking through the streets is beautiful, but being on the canals gives you a completely different understanding of the city itself.

Also, if you're visiting with friends, it's one of those activities that somehow makes everyone slow down for a second instead of sprinting between attractions.

The Architecture Feels Like a Fantasy Movie Set

Ghent is famous for its Harry Potter vibes, and standing on St. Michael's Bridge genuinely does feel a little magical, especially around sunset. It's also probably one of the best photo spots in the city.

But what makes Ghent interesting is that the city isn't just beautiful, it's layered.

Some of the gothic buildings people photograph regularly were actually rebuilt in the early 1900s. The city hall took so long to construct that it includes architectural styles from multiple different historical periods. Depending on where you are in the city, Ghent can feel medieval, elegant, grungy, or student-heavy within the span of a ten-minute walk.

It never feels one-note.

And regardless of whether the buildings are original or reconstructed, the entire city somehow looks good in photos.

If you want the architectural context (which buildings are original, which were rebuilt, what to actually look at), the Legends of Gent historical walking tour is the best two hours you'll spend doing it. Most of what you see makes more sense afterward.

Even the Beer Feels Aesthetic

I can't write about Belgium without mentioning the beer.

I'm not even a huge beer person, but Belgian beer just tastes better than the bottled lagers I'm used to drinking elsewhere in Europe. The famous cherry beer is obviously worth trying, but I ended up loving a surprising number of flavours I normally would've avoided.

My personal favourite was a coconut beer that was somehow gluten free and tasted more like a beach cocktail than something you'd drink in a dark bar in Belgium.

That's another reason Ghent works so well for a girls trip: the beer culture feels fun instead of intense. It's less "frat weekend" and more cozy bars, candlelit corners, and trying random drinks because the label looked cute.

Ghent Has the Kind of Details You Remember Later

What I remember most about Ghent isn't necessarily the major attractions. It's the smaller details.

The tiny bar near the port serving homemade liquor. The city lights that turn on whenever a new baby is born. The fact that you can easily take day trips to places like Bruges while still using Ghent as your home base.

It's one of those cities that feels easy to romanticize after you leave.

I think a lot of people still picture Ghent as a university city that's mostly known for beer and student nightlife. But after visiting twice, I honestly think it's one of the most underrated girls trip destinations in Europe.

It's beautiful without feeling overly polished, touristy without being exhausting, and busy without feeling overwhelming.

Which, honestly, is kind of the ideal combination.

Make this trip yours

The full four-day Ghent itinerary with the Bruges day trip snuck in is live in TripGoGo as an editable starting point. Open it, change the dates to yours, swap whatever doesn't fit your group, share with whoever's coming. The activities the post talks about (chocolate tour, canal cruise, the sunset bridge moment) are already wired in.