Hotels near STAM Ghent City Museum

STAM is the city history museum of Ghent, housed in the extraordinary Bijloke abbey complex - a former Cistercian nunnery founded in 1233 whose 14th-century oak-beamed refectory has one of the great medieval interiors in Belgium. The permanent exhibition takes you chronologically from the Roman settlement of Ganda through Ghent's medieval golden age (when it was the second-largest city north of the Alps after Paris), the textile boom, the collapse under the Habsburgs, and up to the present-day university city.

The single most impressive object is not a painting but a 40-square-metre aerial photograph of Ghent laid on the floor of the abbey's dormitory, showing every street and building overlaid with historical maps you can walk on. Entry is EUR 11 and the museum is included in the CityCard Gent. Allow 90 minutes to 2 hours; the Bijloke Nursing Hall (used for concerts) and the medieval herb garden in the cloister are worth the visit alone. Free English audio guide via QR code.

Pro Tip: Combine STAM with a walk through the Citadelpark 200 metres east, which also holds MSK and the SMAK contemporary art museum. Bijloke Nursing Hall next door often has free daytime rehearsals of the resident concert series - stick your head in.