7,258,491 hotelsin 60 categories
Bruges is authentically medieval, and that heritage is why UNESCO put it on the World Heritage List. The canals do the organising: they curl through the centre, pass under stone bridges, and pull the eye down lanes you would otherwise walk past. Brick gables lean over the water, the historic centre has carried its World Heritage listing since 2000, and the whole of it can be explored on foot, walking with the canals as your guide. It is a small city that stays interesting for days.
We at Travelmyth, the hotel search engine that ranks stays by your interests and needs across 60 stay categories, have put together this guide to what is worth your time in Bruges. It runs through 45 sights, from the 366 steps of the Belfry and the relic kept in the Basilica of the Holy Blood to the silence of the Beguinage courtyard and the windmills out on the green ramparts. Along the way you will find what each place actually costs, when it opens, and which corners reward an early start.
The Markt is the central square of Bruges and covers about a hectare, surrounded by colourful gabled buildings with the 13th-century Belfry on its south side. People have gathered here since the 10th century, and the first international annual fair was held on the square around 1200. In the middle stand Jan Breydel and Pieter de Coninck, two fighters from the Battle of the Golden Spurs in 1302, cast in bronze. The tall neo-Gothic building on the square is the Provinciaal Hof, which occupies the site of the old Waterhall; it burned in 1878 and was rebuilt nine years later. Cars parked on the square within living memory. It was renovated in 1995-96, the parking was removed, and it has been largely traffic-free since. A market still takes over the square every Wednesday.
The Belfry is the medieval bell tower at the south side of the Markt and the building most people picture when they picture Bruges. It went up around 1240, when the city was a major centre of the Flemish cloth trade, and it has burned more than once: a fire in 1280 destroyed the upper half along with the city archives, and the octagonal top you see now was added in the 1480s. A wooden spire crowned it until 1741, when fire took that too. It was never replaced, which is why the tower stands 83 metres tall today rather than its earlier 102.
There are 366 steps to the top, and they are worth the climb for the view over Bruges and its wide surroundings. On the way up you pass the old treasury, where the city charters, the seal and the coffers were locked away. Those charters set out the privileges and freedoms of the city's own citizens, which is why the tower became the icon of Bruges' prosperity and independence. Higher again is the keyboard the city carillonneur uses to play the carillon, which has 47 bells. The city carillonneur plays them on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m.
In summer, from 1 April to 2 November, the tower opens 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily; in winter it is 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays and Sundays and 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturdays, with last entry an hour before closing. Summer admission is 16 € for adults and 14 € for under-18s, winter 15 € and 13 €, and under-7s go free. Prices and opening hours may change; check current details before visiting.
If the Markt is the heart of Bruges, the Burg is its soul: this is where power sat for centuries, and it is a quieter, more enclosed space than the Markt. It stands on the ground of the old fortified castle, and you can take in a Romanesque chapel and a late-Gothic city hall from a single spot without turning very far.
The Stadhuis was built between 1376 and 1421 in late-Gothic style, which makes it one of the oldest city halls in what was then the Burgundian Netherlands. It stands on Burg Square, on the site of the old fortified castle at the centre of Bruges. Its facade, with statues under stone canopies and repeating niches framing the windows, was influential well beyond the city: the city halls of Brussels, Ghent, Leuven and Oudenaarde all followed it. Inside, the restoration carried out between 1895 and 1905 replaced the two older council chambers with a single Gothic Hall, and that room is the reason to buy a ticket.
The basilica was built between 1134 and 1157 as the private chapel of the Count of Flanders and was raised to the rank of minor basilica in 1923. It is really two churches stacked on each other. The lower chapel, dedicated to St Basil the Great, is dark, low and Romanesque, and it has survived virtually unchanged; it is one of the best preserved Romanesque churches in West Flanders. The upper chapel was rebuilt in Gothic style in the 16th century and given its present decoration in the 19th, and it is reached by a monumental staircase called De Steegheere, built between 1529 and 1533.
The upper chapel holds a relic of the Holy Blood. According to tradition it was collected by Joseph of Arimathea and carried back from the Holy Land by Thierry of Alsace, Count of Flanders. The relic is brought out for veneration every day from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., and on Fridays also from 10:15 to 11 a.m. Once a year, on Ascension Day, it leaves the building altogether: the relic is carried to St Saviour's Cathedral in the morning and then through the streets in the Procession of the Holy Blood, with the closing celebration back on Burg Square. Entry to the basilica itself is free; the museum and treasury cost 5 €, and under-12s go free. The church opens daily from 10:00 to 17:15.
This bend in the canal is the most photographed spot in the city, and it earns it: the water turns, the brick gables step down to the quay, and the Belfry stands behind it all. Rosaries were once sold here, which is where the name comes from. Come at first light or after dinner; in between, you will be queueing for the angle.
The canals have been the veins of Bruges for centuries, and the city still reads best from the water, where you see the backs of houses and the low bridges that the street plan hides. Boats board at several points around the centre, including the Rozenhoedkaai and the Huidenvettersplein, and a trip takes about half an hour. The queue is the variable worth planning around: go early, or go late in the day.
The Church of Our Lady dates mainly from the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, and its brick tower reaches 115.6 metres, which makes it the tallest structure in Bruges. Inside, behind the high altar, lie Charles the Bold, the last Valois Duke of Burgundy, and his daughter Mary of Burgundy, their gilded bronze effigies laid out full length on polished black stone. The two tombs are worth slow looking: this is Burgundian court art at close range, and glass set over the tomb opening lets you see the frescoes on the walls of the chamber below.
In a chapel in the southern aisle stands the church's most celebrated possession, a white marble Madonna and Child by Michelangelo. It has an unusual history for a Renaissance sculpture: it was the first work by Michelangelo to leave Italy in his lifetime, bought in 1504 by the Bruges cloth merchants Giovanni and Alessandro Mouscron for 100 ducats. It has also left Bruges twice, both times against the city's will. French revolutionaries took it in 1794 and it came back after 1815; retreating German soldiers took it in 1944, and it was found a year later in a salt mine at Altaussee in Austria and returned again.
St John's Hospital was founded in the middle of the 12th century, right beside the Church of Our Lady, and its buildings are among the oldest surviving hospital buildings in Europe. It went on working as a hospital until 1977. Part of the complex is now a museum, built around the Hans Memling collection, and the medieval wards themselves are as much the exhibit as the paintings hanging in them.
The Groeningemuseum sits on the site of the medieval Eekhout Abbey and holds six centuries of Flemish and Belgian painting, from Jan van Eyck through to Marcel Broodthaers. The reason to come is the Flemish Primitives: Van Eyck's Madonna with Canon Joris van der Paele and Hans Memling's Moreel Triptych both hang here, a few rooms apart. It is a compact museum, which is a mercy: you can take it in properly without the gallery fatigue a larger collection forces on you. Adult admission is 15 €; 18 to 25s pay 13 €, 13 to 17s pay 7 €, and under-13s go free.
The Gruuthuse is a museum of applied arts inside the medieval mansion of Louis de Gruuthuse, with a collection spanning the 15th to the 19th century. The family name and the family money came from a monopoly on taxing gruit, the commodity that gave the gruit house its name. Louis de Gruuthuse added a private chapel in 1472 that connects the house directly to the Church of Our Lady next door. The best-known object in the collection is a painted terracotta bust of Charles V from 1520, attributed to Conrat Meit.
The Princely Beguinage Ten Wijngaerde was founded in the mid-1240s and is the only preserved beguinage in Bruges. It was built for the beguines, emancipated lay-women who nevertheless led a pious and celibate life. No beguines live here now; the houses are occupied by religious sisters and single women, and the beguinage has been inhabited exclusively by women for centuries. Around thirty white-painted houses, dating from the late 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, stand around a central courtyard with a Gothic church at one side. It was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1998 as part of the Flemish Beguinages. Entry is free, and the city asks visitors to keep silence inside, which is not a formality: silence is the point of the place.
Beyond the Beguinage the canal opens into the Minnewater, a still stretch of water with a bridge across the neck. The name is usually explained by a legend that water nymphs, minnen in Dutch, once lived in the lake; that is folklore rather than settled etymology, and the city tells it as a story rather than a fact. It is a quiet walk and the obvious way to end an afternoon.
De Halve Maan brews Brugse Zot and Straffe Hendrik, has operated on its present site since 1856, and has stayed in the same family for six generations. Its best story runs underground: in 2016 the brewery laid a beer pipeline from the brewery to its bottling plant, so that lorries would stop grinding through the narrow cobbled streets.
On the Markt, the Bruges Beer Experience is an interactive museum about the history of beer in general and Belgian beer in particular, and it is the better option if you want the context without the brewery tour. It works well with children, who get to touch and feel the ingredients and smell the aromatic herbs that flavour the beer.
Choco-Story runs across four floors with an interactive audio guide and takes cocoa from the Maya and the Spanish conquistadores through to the chocolatiers of today, finishing with chocolates made by hand and sampled on the spot. Adult admission is 16 €; over-65s and students pay 14 €, children aged 3 to 11 pay 10 €, and under-3s go free. Outside the museum, chocolatiers are thick on the ground in the centre, and the difference between a serious maker and souvenir filler is usually visible in the window: look for a workroom behind the counter.
Belgium's claim on fried potatoes gets a museum of its own, and it is housed in a building with a better pedigree than the subject suggests: the Genoese Republic once ran its commercial representation in Bruges from here. It is a short visit and a good one with children.
Historium sits on the Markt and covers the medieval history of the city, taking visitors through seven themed rooms set in the time of Jan van Eyck with audiovisual staging rather than display cases. It is the one attraction in Bruges built for people who do not much like museums.
St Saviour's is the Roman Catholic cathedral of Bruges and the main church of the city, and its tower is the third of the three towers that define the skyline alongside the Belfry and the Church of Our Lady. It is less visited than either, which is reason enough to go in.
The Jerusalem Church was built by the Adornes family in the 15th century and was later remodelled under Anselm Adornes, with its design inspired by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Inside is the mausoleum of Anselm Adornes and his wife Margaretha van der Banck. It stands across the passageway from the Lace Centre, and the two are naturally done together, though the Adornes Estate is its own ticketed attraction.
The small stone bridge behind the Church of Our Lady is one of the quietest corners in the centre and, despite appearances, younger than it looks. Crowds tend to arrive by about 10 a.m., so this is a first-thing stop.
Huidenvettersplein, the old tanners' square, is tucked between the Fish Market and the Rozenhoedkaai, and it is one of the small intimate squares the centre does so well. The Vismarkt next door is a colonnaded market hall from another era of the city's working life. Both sit a few steps off the busiest view in Bruges and are almost always calmer than it.
The square is named for Simon Stevin, the mathematician and engineer who lived from 1548 to 1620 and whose statue stands in the middle of it. Trees, benches, cafes around the edge: it is a place to sit rather than a place to see, and it takes the Krokuskermis funfair once a year.
In the Middle Ages this square was the harbour, the point where merchants from across Europe did business, and the buildings around it still say so. The Poortersloge and the old Tolhuis, the toll house, flank the square. It is a five-minute walk from the Markt and feels a world away from it.
't Zand is the largest square in Bruges and, until the early 20th century, was where the railway station stood. The Concertgebouw on its edge is an international music and art centre and the most assertive piece of modern architecture in the city, a terracotta block that argues with everything around it. Whether you like it is beside the point; it is worth walking to.
Bruges' almshouses are centuries-old housing courtyards set into the fabric of the city, usually behind a plain door in a plain street. Push one open where a sign invites you to and you find whitewashed cottages around a garden, still lived in. They are free, they are everywhere once you start noticing them, and they are the best answer to the question of what Bruges is like away from the squares.
Four partly historic windmills stand on the Kruisvest rampart on the eastern edge of the centre: Sint-Janshuismolen, Bonne-Chieremolen, Koeleweimolen and De Nieuwe Papegaai. Sint-Janshuismolen still works and can be visited inside. The green ramparts they stand on, the Vesten, run right around the city, cover 26 hectares and hold more than 3,000 trees, and walking or cycling them is the best way to understand the shape of Bruges.
Four of the medieval city gates survive: the Kruispoort, the Gentpoort, the Smedenpoort and the Ezelpoort. Three others, the Dampoort, the Katelijnepoort and the Boeveriepoort, are gone. The Kruispoort has had the roughest history of the four. An earlier gate on the site was rebuilt in 1366, destroyed in 1382 when Philip van Artevelde took the city with the Ghent militia, and replaced in 1400; only the two heavy towers, the narrow passage between them and two octagonal turrets survive from that build. Charles V, Napoleon and the German army all entered Bruges through it.
Bruges lace is not a museum piece yet. At the Kantcentrum you can follow the history of lace-making and, in the afternoons, watch lacemakers actually working, which is the part that makes the craft legible. Pair it with the Jerusalem Church across the passageway.
Bruges rewards a second day with a set of small places that no itinerary insists on. The Gezellehuis is the birthplace of the poet Guido Gezelle. The Diamond Museum, Lumina Domestica, the Museum-Gallery Xpo Salvador Dali and the Lace Centre make up the smaller-museum circuit. Two archers' guilds still survive in the city, St George's and St Sebastian's. And the Koningin Astridpark, a botanical park near the Fish Market and Burg Square, has a pond and fountain, a romantic kiosk, a large playground and no shortage of benches, which makes it the obvious place to let children off the leash for an hour.
Damme was the commercial outpost of Bruges after a storm in 1134 reopened the city's route to the sea through the Zwin, and the two are still tied together by the canal. The Lamme Goedzak boat runs out along it, which makes an easy half-day out of the city if you have the time.
How long to give it. One day covers the Markt, the Burg, the Belfry and a canal trip, and you will leave feeling you skimmed it. Two days is the honest minimum if you want the museums as well, and a third day buys you the ramparts, the almshouses and Damme without rushing.
When to go. Bruges' historic centre can become very busy with visitors, so an early start can make the main sights noticeably quieter. The reliable trick is not the season but the hour: the centre before 9 a.m. and after 7 p.m. is a different city. Winter brings a market to the Markt and shorter opening hours at the Belfry, so check times before you plan a climb.
Getting there and getting around. Bruges is a common day trip from Brussels and from London, and cruise passengers arrive through the port at Zeebrugge to the north. Once you are in, the centre is walkable end to end and the ring of ramparts is best done by bike. Nothing in this guide needs a car.
Where to stay. Staying inside the ring canal is what makes the early-morning and late-evening city possible, and it is the single decision that most changes a visit here. Travelmyth lists stays across Bruges and ranks them by the things you actually care about, so if you want a boutique-style property, somewhere family friendly, or a dog-friendly stay, you can filter by any of those and combine two.