I {heart} Gent

Axel and I spent the afternoon in Gent on Saturday. It's terrible, really, to admit that in all the years we've been together we haven't taken much time out to just explore and relax. Our staycation this summer really reminded us to do this more often. So we made dinner plans in Gent to celebrate our anniversary and went into town hours early to "browse."

Click on the photo to see more pictures of our day out in Gent.

It was busy and very hot so headed to the underground carpark at KOUTER, when we popped up out of the parking lot onto the market we found a wonderful international market going on. Stalls from all over Europe .. I bought this lovely coinpurse from a man who was selling all kinds of leather goods made by his family in Hungary.

Then we headed toward the GRASLEI, we didn't really have anything in particular in mind .. except ending at the restaurant for our reservation at 6:30. But then we remembered that I wanted to hold an iPad 2, we've been talking about getting one but didn't want to take the plunge until I had at least had one in my hands. SOLD! I can hardly wait, even though I know it will disappear with Axel when he goes on tour for two weeks the end of September.

Still heading into the center of town, we stopped in at one of my favorite shops: Dille & Kamille. Even Axel doesn't get bored in here .. it's full of all kinds of great kitchenwares, garden items, children's toys and more.
We bought ourselves the perfect anniversary gift .. a ravioli form!

After that we just kind of wandered here and there following our feet through the crowds - it was really busy! The best times were went we wandered down the empty streets without any aim, but darn there, we forgot to take pictures.

We even found an English bookstore with lots of old hardbacks including Pollyanna of the Orange Blossoms and a couple of other historical reads for me.

Oh yeh, I wanted to run into the yarn/fabric shop. I had no idea Stoffenidee had moved (two years ago!), but the new shop owner was very very friendly and pointed us in the right direction. I swear I have the most patient husband. Off on a jaunt, past Gravensteen, a bit further and yep - there it was! I love their new location and they were soooo much more friendly this time. Is it because I speak Nederlands now? Although, when stuck they were happy to switch to English and then back to Nederlands when we figured it out again. Came out with a sweet bag full of yarn for this project and an impulse buy of yarn and whoppen needles for the simplest shrug or "teapot warmer" as my friend Janice would say.

There's more fun girly stuff to share, but this post is already getting long and I've probably bored you so I'll do another tomorrow and show my LACE PURCHASE .. it's to die for!

We ended the evening at the Raj along the Kraanlei. We sat outside, the weather was amazing, the service great but the food sadly wasn't much to write home about. Pin It Now!