$6.99City HighlightsGhent Audio Walking Tours
Self-guided, narrated walks through Ghent. Buy a tour once, download it, and hear the story at each stop while you walk at your own pace.
Tours from $6.99
Friends walk free. One purchase covers everyone on your walk. Start the tour, invite your friends to join, and it plays on every phone in your group.
5.0 on Google Play
Ghent audio tours
Each tour is a mapped route with narration at every stop. Buy it once and it is yours to keep, no subscription.
$6.99City HighlightsWhat to expect on a Ghent audio walking tour
A Ghent audio walk takes you past three medieval towers and along canal quays lined with guild houses, with narration timed to each stop so you can just look up at the belfry or lean on a bridge rail instead of reading a map.
The Ghent Old Town Walk opens at St. Bavo's Cathedral, home to the Ghent Altarpiece, before crossing the square to the Belfry and its gilded dragon. From there the route passes Saint Nicholas' Church and the three towers settle into a line behind you as you reach the Korenmarkt, the old corn market that is still the lively, tram-crossed heart of the city.
Partway along, the route reaches Saint Michael's Bridge, the single best viewpoint in Ghent, where the three towers line up behind the Graslei and Korenlei quays and their stepped guild houses reflect in the river Leie. You'll walk the length of the quays here before the route turns north toward the water's edge.
The walk closes at the Gravensteen, a genuine moated castle planted in the middle of the city, then finishes a few minutes east at the Vrijdagmarkt, Ghent's old Friday Market square. The whole loop is about 1.7 kilometers, roughly 23 minutes of walking, and flat the entire way.
Where to walk in Ghent
A few of the stops you will pass, and why they are worth slowing down for.
Graslei and Korenlei
These two quays face each other across the river Leie in the old harbor, and they are the postcard of Ghent, a row of stepped and pointed guild houses standing shoulder to shoulder along the water. Some facades go back the better part of eight hundred years, built by the medieval guilds that once unloaded grain and goods onto these wharves. The Graslei side is the grander of the two and the most photographed stretch of the city, especially in early evening light. It's a wonderful place to sit right down at the stone edge with your legs over the water, the way half of young Ghent already will be, and watch the boats and reflections drift by.
Gravensteen Castle
The Gravensteen, the Castle of the Counts, is a real medieval fortress sitting right in the middle of the modern city, grey stone battlements and a keep rising straight out of its own moat. A count of Flanders built it more than eight hundred years ago, partly to keep an eye on his own unruly citizens, and it has served since as a fortress, a court, a prison and even a factory. You can walk the ramparts and climb the keep for a view over the rooftops if you go inside, though even from the water it's a stirring sight. Walk around its base, then head into the lanes just behind it, the old Patershol quarter, toward the walk's last stop.
The Three Towers
Ghent's skyline is built around three towers standing almost in a row: the Gothic bulk of St. Bavo's Cathedral, home to the Ghent Altarpiece, the tall Belfry with its gilded dragon on top, and the lantern tower of Saint Nicholas' Church. Walking the route means crossing the length of this skyline on foot, from the cathedral square to the old corn market beside Saint Nicholas'. Because the towers stay visible from so many streets, they work as landmarks for the whole old town, so you can always get your bearings just by looking up, on a grey day or a clear one.
Korenmarkt
The Korenmarkt, the old corn market, is the lively central square of Ghent, a wide cobbled space that has been the commercial heart of the city for a thousand years, once piled high with grain unloaded from boats on the nearby river. Today it's ringed with cafes and old guild houses and crossed constantly by trams, cyclists and people cutting through the old town, a genuinely lived-in hub rather than a showpiece. Look for the old post office building with its ornate tower. It's the practical center the rest of the walk radiates out from, before the route turns toward the quieter water.
Vrijdagmarkt
The walk ends at the Vrijdagmarkt, the Friday Market, one of the largest and oldest squares in Ghent and the traditional heart of public life in the city. For seven hundred years this is where the townsfolk gathered, held their markets, staged their revolts and swore in their counts, and it still carries that lived-in, unpolished feel rather than a tourist stage set. A statue of a medieval guild leader stands at its center, ringed by old guild houses and cafe terraces that still fill with a market on certain days, reached through the atmospheric lanes of the Patershol quarter.
Get the Audio Tour in 3 Simple Steps
All in the free Walk With Me app, and the first stops of every tour are free to try.
Tap the Gold Headphones and Pick a Tour
01
Walk It Solo or Invite Someone
02
Press Play and Walk
03
Handcrafted for Your Time in the City
These tours aren't a checklist of sights. They're made to be walked slowly, headphones on, eyes on the city.
Meditative and Immersive
Each story is told where it happened. The app chimes when you reach a stop, one tap starts the story, and the stretch between stops is yours to take in at your own pace.
Handcrafted With Care
We choose every route and every stop ourselves and shape each story with care, so the time you have in the city goes to the places most worth seeing.
Better With Someone
Every walk is better with someone beside you, so if you can bring a friend, we really hope you do. That's why one purchase covers everyone you invite: they join your tour free.