Best of Bruges

Bruges' Market Square (Grote Markt)

On Sunday my family went on a two night trip to Bruges, Belgium!  This trip is a little different then other ones I have been on recently, I have been on so many trips this year independently of with just friends, so it was nice to be traveling with my family again.  It was a quick trip - but definitely a city worth traveling too.  I hope this post could inspire you to plan a trip to the fairytale city of Bruges.

BEST of Bruges:

View off the top of Bruge's Belfry

1. Belfry:  My favorite part of Bruges was the Belfry!  It is definitely the most iconic part of the city.  You can go up the Belfry for 8 euros or buy a Bruges city pass for most of the public museums for 20 euros.  There are 360 stairs and they space gets kinda small to climb up that entire way, but its actually not too crowded because they only let 70 people up at the time (this does mean that you should try to get there early because it can get crowded! we waited for about ten minutes, getting there probably at like 10 am, and by the time we got back down there was a line three times as long!!)  At the top, there was a beautiful view of the entire fairytalesque city of Bruges - well worth the wait and journey up the stairs.
2. Walking Around:  Bruges is a BEAUTIFUL city.  You can get a feel for the city just by wandering the streets.  There is not a lot of car traffic - mostly bikes or pedestrians.

   

   One of Bruge's Windmills

    We did a couple of walks in my Mom’s tour book - one I would especially recommend is walking along the canals.  Some people say Bruges is the Venice of the North.  Now that I have wandered around both - I am not sure if that name holds true, but walking by the canals is definitely worth it!  Especially if you are traveling during the summer when I suspect there are more tourists around.  If you are walking around, you can pop into some of the other city sites like the churches or the city hall.
3. Christmas Markets: Going to Bruges in November or December is neat because they have their Christmas Markets out!  Walking around at night is extra fun because of this - there are lots of people, food and gifts!  It isn’t crazy or huge, but it is really fun!!
4. Memling in Sint-Jan Hospitaalmuseum: We went to 2 museums, the second of which I liked best.  This is because it was in an old hospital building so it had a variety or art and historical objects so it was pretty interesting to wander through.  The only problem was that all the descriptions were in Dutch - but we were trying to go through the museums pretty fast anyways so I didn’t mind that too much.  I cannot guarantee that this was the best museum in Bruges, but of the museums I saw I liked it best.
5. Groeninge Museum:  This museum is all Flemish Art.  It is a lot of art from like the 1400’s or so, which honestly wasn’t particularly appealing to me or any of my family but a few things did stand out.  The first was that the museum had a storytelling aspect to it, in that although most of the art was from the 1400’s, they had some more modern art to show which direction Flemish art has gone.  Additionally, they had a temporary exhibit arranging some of the existing paintings using maps and mirrors to illustrate the importance of water to Bruges.  Lastly they had a few illuminated manuscripts which I always think are interesting and beautiful.

Things to AVOID:

• Choco-Story:  the chocolate museum honestly is probably not worth your time or money.  It is sort of a hodgepodge history of chocolate but focusing on the wrong parts of chocolate's history in my opinion - mayan and aztec pre-history and then sort of a Belgian advertisement for chocolate.  It was super crowded and poorly arranged.  There was a neat demonstration and taste test of Pralines at the end.  But I was hoping for more of the production and history of chocolate in Belgium and that was not clear.  Probably skippable.

Where to EAT:

Breydel-de Coninck/$$/Breidelstraat 24, 8000 Brugge, Belgium

This restaurant was great.  Felt really local.  They had great seafood.  It was pretty well priced and decently fast.  They serve a lot of types of Mussels and other seafood.  Would definitely recommend.

Cafedraal/$$/ Zilverstraat 38, 8000 Brugge, Belgium

This restaurant was also really good.  It had a ‘hipper’ vibe.  It was decor made the restaurant have a really great feel and they had great food choices; both seafood and meat options. 

Le Pain Quotidien/$/Philipstockstraat 21, 8000 Brugge, Belgium

This place was a cute organic cafe, they had great unique dishes for either breakfast or lunch.  If you are looking for a quality cafe then I would really recommend this place.  They are quick to serve you and answer any questions.

Where to SLEEP:

Hotel Heritage/$$$$/Niklaas Desparsstraat 11, 8000 Brugge, Belgium

This hotel is VERY nice.  They are very attentive and ready to serve you.  It was in a great location right near the market square.  Both of our rooms had seating areas and bedrooms.  The bathrooms were spacious and very well functioning.  The maids visited your room three times a day (to clean the room, to deliver port and cognac in the evening and to turn down the room at night with Belgian Chocolates).  Overall worth the money.

My family on the top of the belfry of Bruges