Oh, he'd most definitely learn to drive a stick before we went to Europe. That said, the idea of trying to navigate in a foreign country doesn't appeal to me terribly. One of my friends who had a bad experience with renting a car in France had a GPS for the car, and she said it come in VERY handy.

Papaver, Gent is one of the places we wanted to drive to. Beyond being more centrally located than Bruges, why do you prefer it? A few years back, Budget Travel magazine did an article on Gent and I remember thinking "I must go there," but I can't remember much from it. I remember that it was very cycling-centric. I like the idea of renting bikes for the day and tooling around.

Thanks for all the help. If you have any suggestions regarding where to eat, what to see, etc., I'd certainly welcome them.