This park was near our hotel, and we decided to walk through it on our way into the centre of town This park in very large and has numerous well maintained paved paths with many sections of On some evenings I was very lucky to see many other gays in this park. But on other occasions, there was hardly anyone.
Concerning safety, I would say use your common sense. Don't go too late that's when some fool going out in the Overpoortstraat area and running out of money might think that robbing a gay in the park is a financial solution.
The presence of a few old men on one of the benches near the lake is good for some social control. Anyhow, an hour in this park is better for your mental health than staring for hours on the screen of your mobile device while searching for unreachable dates. The Citadel Park is not a safe place to visit. Never try to do it on your own, but alway go in group. I might see like a nice place but dont get fooled. It had quite high criminality. Specially when its dark. After 30 min i was touched and grabbed by 3 different dark guys.
Not a safe place IMO. Spending a full week in Ghent allowed me to have a more in depth look at this provincial but dazzling city. The main park is one of these places I considered worth a study. I was there three times and found the first two evening visits a weird symbiosis of health chasing men and women jogging along the curving paths, groups of students doing their annual initiation rituals throwing eggs, flour and less describable stuff, walking like zombies or imitating the local ducks and last but not least, gay men cruising the museum area and the upper lake.
On both week nights, the weather was lovely and felt like the last days of an indian summer. On my last nightly visit however, temperature had decreased a lot and there was hardly anyone using or enjoying the Citadelpark in the ways I described already.
