Kraanlei

The stone facades along the Kraanlei curve with the Leie river, marked by high, stepped gables that rise straight out of the water. This row of houses dates primarily to the seventeenth century, built when Ghent functioned as a wealthy center for grain merchants. In sixteen seventy-two, a merchant named Jan de Smet ordered the construction of the house at number fifteen, carving a relief of a crane into its stone lintel to identify his business where ships once docked to unload heavy cargo.