Hello! Just a few days ago, I wrote a post about Ghent, a city I visited recently a loved a lot, even if I only stayed there for two full days! I described many of its beautiful parts in that post, but left my favourite attraction for a completely separate post - as I believed it deserves to be fully in the spotlight.

This attraction is Gravensteen - a castle in Ghent that is named in the least unique way possible: Graaf means count, while steen means stone. It was a castle made out of stone, for counts. Hence - Gravensteen. This is something we have learnt from the audioguide which was absolutely amazing. Normally, I am not that much of a fan of these, as they tend to get boring to listen to after a while.. But that was not the case here. Gravensteen's audioguide is written by a comedian, who does a great job of keeping you entertained; even if sometimes he goes on a liiiiittle too much of a tangent.

Inside

The inside of Gravensteen is not as exquisite or maginificent as many other castles you may encounter. In fact, it is almost humble in comparison.. Of course, that still means there is some grandeur, just not as much as you might expect. There are many interesting things you can see in there, including old weapons and armor, the bedrooms of Phillip of Alsace and his wife, and much much more.

That's me in front of the room with all the armour.

You can wander the castle stairways and rooms, peeking into places as dark as the oubliette, which - as you can learn along the way from the audioguide - wasn't really even used as one, as there supposedly wasn't that many prisoners back when Phillip of Alsace and then all the other counts inhabited the castle. That was until the fourteenth century, when the building was repurposed to being a prison and a place of executions.

That's my girlfriend descending down a staircase.. Don't worry, no executions happen here anymore!

Back to executions though - the audioguide provides you with information about some of the more interesting executions that took place here - a lot of torture, multiple guillotine killings, as well as awfully inhumane and horrible things that I don't want to spoil. There was one story of a man boiling alive though.. Ouch.

There was a beautiful and more positive story though that was told - I am not sure if factual, or more of a legend. One of the tortures included being sat in the middle of a square room, with four chains linked to one wall each.. And the neck of the tortured. Apparently it was allowed to have your family and friends cheer you on and watch you suffer, as the torturers aim to get a confession out of you. The story was that of a man who, thanks to these cheers, survived and was let out after a gruelling week of suffering.

Completely unrelated pictures below:

I found the chapel to be quite interesting due to this cross-shaped window! How cool is that?!

Outside

Large part of the tour takes part outside, as the castle has a lot of outdoor space, including a bunch of courtyards and gardens. Most of our pictures here are just.. well, us in front of the castles - from different angles. I love these though, as it actually is quite a pretty building!

First of all, Gravensteen has a great rooftop with awesome views. To get up there, you do need to get up quite some of those stairways I've shown above - but the views are definitely worth it!

I'm not sure why, but I love pictures taken through these tiny openings.

But there's no photos I love more than those with my girlfriend on them!

One of the more interesting things you can learn while strolling along the outside walls of the castle is another thing the audioguide tells you - the counts actually relieved their physiological needs straight into the moat. If the citizens of the town were attentive enough, they could see their excrements descend right into the water - hopefully no one was actually aiming to witness that.

Luckily, that isn't the sight we had to witness while walking around. The castle walls are in a great state, as evidenced by the picture below.

When it comes to the castle itself, it also looks stunning from most angles - while it is just a stone building and not as menacing or grandiose as some of the gothic Ghent churches, it is still really pretty. Below you can find one last picture of this post: my girlfriend and the castle!

Closing Words

Gravensteen was an awesome place to visit - it was pretty from the outside AND from the inside. That said, a lot of my enjoyment of the visit also came from the audioguide; I learnt so much, had a lot of fun listening to the stories and laughed quite a bit at the jokes! If you ever visit, make sure to pick it up - it is included in the entry fee and it will make it an even more interesting journey!

I can recommend to anyone to pay these few euros and go on these journey through time to the life of Phillip of Alsace in this castle; as well as the later moments, in which it was a prison and an execution place. Thanks for reading and see you in my next travel post!