Ghent Museums

Ghent’s local history museum (known by its Flemish acronym, STAM) is full of wonderful medieval and Renaissance artifacts from the religious, political, military, and commercial life of the city. When we were there, it also featured Lego versions of some of Ghent’s most famous buildings (and a vast table of Legos for visitors like us to play with). More modest but equally interesting is the Van Alijn museum, set in a 1363 almshouse and dedicated to showing everyday life in Ghent in the 19th and 20th centuries. The city also has a great, quirky design museum, which melds modernist objects with an 18th-century mansion. (Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take pictures in most of it.)