Ghent is a beautiful Belgian city barely an hour’s drive from Brussels. Sitting roughly halfway between the capital and the celebrated city of Bruges, it holds one of the best-preserved historic centers in this part of Europe — a place where the buildings alone justify the journey.
Its position between two small rivers made it a powerful city-state in its heyday. Today it is known primarily as a cultural hub and a university town, which gives it an energy and youthfulness that many of its neighbors lack.
Ghent’s defining symbol is, without question, the Belfort tower — a 14th-century belfry that rises more than 295 feet above the city and once served as a watchtower for the citizens below. The tower is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the views from its bell chamber are spectacular. The climb is worth every step for the panorama it offers over the Grote Markt, the beating heart of Ghent’s art and cultural life.
And just beside this tower, on a smaller and far less conspicuous building, there is a sculpture that stops you cold: a woman nursing an elderly man. What could such an image possibly mean in a place like this?
The Belfort Tower and the Dragon That Guards the City
When you arrive at the Grote Markt — now commonly called the main square — the sheer scale of what surrounds you is disorienting in the best way. Restaurants, bars, and shops line the perimeter, and street performers singing, dancing, and juggling are a common sight. The square is the city’s true center, and the most historically significant buildings in Ghent rose around it over the centuries: the Church of St. Nicholas, the cathedral, and rising above them all, the Belfort tower.
This immense medieval structure, standing 299 feet tall, was built in the 14th century as a defensive measure. Its commanding height — still remarkable today — allowed the people of Ghent to spot approaching enemies from far off and ready their defenses.
The tower also served as a watchtower for detecting fires and later as the city’s archive and treasury.
Ghent’s most prized possessions were guarded by the imposing Golden Dragon, which has served as a weather vane atop the tower since 1377, watching over the city from its perch nearly 300 feet in the air.
Today, the belfry is a must-see for any traveler in Ghent. It also houses a spectacular carillon that plays melodies and folk songs throughout the day, its notes drifting across the square at odd moments.
The tower has become an enduring symbol of Ghent — not only for its height, but for the weight of history it carries.
At its base stands the Cloth Hall, built over many years and finally completed in 1907. One of the buildings incorporated into this complex, adjacent to the belfry, was the jailer’s house. Above its door, largely overlooked by visitors overwhelmed by the grandeur around them, sits one of the most quietly striking sculptures in the city: the Mammelokker.
The Legend of the Woman Who Nursed Her Own Father
The word Mammelokker translates roughly as “the one who suckles” or “the one who draws from the breast” — a term ordinarily applied to infants. In the story it commemorates, the roles are reversed in the most unexpected way.
The legend tells of Cimon, an old man condemned to die in prison without food. His sentence was death by starvation — a particularly cruel fate given his age. His daughter Pero, the only family he had left in the world, petitioned the authorities to allow her to visit him each day in his cell. Her request was granted.
The authorities assumed that poor Cimon would not last long without food, but to everyone’s astonishment, the old man endured — day after day, weakened but unbroken.
Suspicious, the guards followed Pero on one of her visits, only to find her nursing her own father through the bars of his cell. When she was discovered, she fell to her knees before the magistrate and begged for mercy, saying she had acted only out of love for her father. The judge, having witnessed the scene himself, pardoned Cimon and spared his life.
This legend, deeply embedded in the city’s memory, draws from the ancient story of “Roman Charity,” first recorded in the first century by Valerius Maximus. The names of the two figures are identical to those in that classical account — a story later made famous in the visual arts, most memorably by Caravaggio.
The scene was carved in relief above the jailer’s door on this one building in Ghent: a woman nursing her father through prison bars, rendered in stone for anyone who looks up at the right moment. It is a detail that slips past most visitors, their attention pulled in every direction by the spectacle of the Grote Markt — which is precisely what makes it worth finding.
