Ghent in 4 days

A blue-stone fortress built in 1180 by Philip of Alsace, Count of Flanders, modelled on crusader castles he had seen in Syria.

Cobbled lanes behind the castle on their medieval plan, named after the Carmelite fathers who settled here in the 17th century.

Two facing quays on the Leie, the city's first port, lined with guild houses and a Romanesque grain store of about 1200.

A narrow alley where graffiti has been legal since 1995; walls, ground and doors are repainted constantly, so what you photograph will soon be gone.

A 91-metre tower begun in 1313, symbol of the city's freedoms against count and bishop, which once held the chest of civic charters.

The Van Eyck brothers' Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, finished in 1432, its detail brought back by a restoration under way since 2012.

In the Bijloke abbey, founded in the 13th century, telling the city's story; the highlight is a 300 m² aerial photo you walk across.

Founded around 1235 by Joan of Constantinople: some sixty white gabled houses around a church and a meadow, behind an enclosing wall.