Travel Guide: Bruges

Bruges, or Brugge to give it’s Flemish name, is a smallish town in northern Belgium. It’s well known for it’s medieval architecture and picturesque canals, that surely won’t disappoint.

At a glance…

• Days To Spend: 1
• Get Around: Walk everywhere!
• Get In and Out: By train
• Pay: With Euros, most likely using a bank card
• Speak: Dutch if you can, but English will be spoken by nearly everyone
• See: the Canals, Luc Vanlaere Harpist, the Churches
• Should you go?: Yes, as a day trip

General Impressions

Bruges is on many Brussels-bound traveller’s lists as a day trip, and that comes as no surprise. It is a pretty medieval town, aesthetically criss-crossed with canals. It’s busy with tourists, but not so much that it’s bothersome.

Public Transport

Getting Around

Bruges is pretty small, and you can walk everywhere from the train station, but there is a bus network if you need to reach somewhere far.

Getting In and Out

Bruges has a train station, which has fast connections to most other Belgian cities, and, most importantly, Brussels.

Money

The attitude in Bruges mimics the attitudes found in other countries and cities in the region: card payment is always possible, and slightly preferred.

Language

Bruges is located in the Flanders region of Belgium, meaning the language of choice is Flemish (a dialect of Dutch). Speaking Dutch will get you understood (though you may have a bit of trouble with the Flemish accent, depending on your proficiency), but English is widely spoken and understood.

Time

Bruges is quite small, and you really only need about a day to see most of the sites worth seeing. There’s a number of museums, so if you’re interested you could probably extend your visit by another day or so, but I think treating Bruges as a simple day trip from Brussels is the optimum.

My Favourite Spots

The Churches

Being a medieval town in Europe, there are, of course, a number of beautiful churches to visit. The best of these are the Basilica of the Sacred Blood (pictured first) and St Salvator’s Cathedral.

Luc Vanlaere Harpist

We came upon Luc Vanlaere by accident, when we say “free harp concert” advertised. Luc Vanlaere is an incredibly talented musician, who runs 3 free concerts a day (on Wednesday-Saturday) in Bruges. He plays a variety of harp-like instruments, including a reconstruction of a Harp of Ur, some of the oldest, still intact, musical instruments ever found. It is an amazing experience to hear how music from thousands of years ago would sound.

Spots That Might Be Good

The Lace Centre

Bruges has a rich history of making lace, and a museum has been made to honour that tradition. It’s somewhat interesting to learn about how lace is traditionally made, and, if you’re lucky, you can see some of the old Flemish ladies at the Centre still doing it by hand.

Conclusion

Bruges is a fantastic day trip from Brussels. The well preserved nature of the town gives you a taste of what life would have been like in the Middles Ages for Flemish city residents.