DBA (Dutch Barge Association) Rally Gent 2018. What good fun! It all went so fast with a tour of the city, meals in Gent, brewery trip, rowing contest, boules, discussions of barge and navigation matters and of course chatting and yes a few Belgium beers. Of course everyone raised their masts and flew bunting and pennants along with various flags. All very colourful. Would we go again? The answer is definitely yes. Nice to meet old friends and make lots of new ones, as well as having a fun time.
A few of the boats moored in Portus Ganda in the centre of Gent.
One quite nice aspect was an open barge day where other participants of the rally could look around your barge and discuss details. Equally the reciprocal was encouraged. Whilst this was a good nose around another barge I felt the more interesting part was technical discussions of equipment and solutions to common problems associated with propelling your home with all its self-contained systems around the waterways of Europe.
Plenty of Red Ensigns.
Obviously as well as the pure rally we were in Gent which we would thoroughly recommend. It's a fantastic city with such history and unusually for this part of the world it did not suffer from the ravages of more recent wars, hence it is intact. One aspect of Gent is that whilst it has tourists the town is a real working city with tourists in quite defined places. Unlike some towns which are tourist central and the whole economy is tourism.
One of the many pretty streets in Gent.
Did I mention the bars and restaurants? There are so many and most are very inviting with fascinating interiors.
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