By Nick Hammond, Vice President of Group Sales, Roseville Travel
Bruges gets called a museum city, an open-air theme park, and the most beautiful town in Belgium. All three are fair.
The difference between the version people complain about and the version people love is entirely a matter of what time you are there.
The case for staying over
Bruges is an hour from Brussels and forty minutes from Ghent, so nearly everyone comes for the day. They arrive between ten and eleven and leave between four and six.
In that window the Markt is packed, the canal boats have queues, and the chocolate shops are three deep.
At about six the crowd drains out. The squares empty, the lamps come on along the canals, and the city becomes quiet enough to hear your own footsteps on the cobbles. Hotel rooms in the centre are not expensive by Western European standards.
One night converts Bruges from a nice afternoon into the part of the trip people remember. It is the single best piece of advice about this city.
What to actually see
The Markt and the Belfry. The tower climb is 366 steps up a narrowing spiral and the view is worth every one. Book a slot in season.
A canal boat. Half an hour, inexpensive, and the city was built to be seen from the water. Take it early or late.
The Church of Our Lady, which holds Michelangelo's Madonna and Child — the only sculpture of his that left Italy during his lifetime. It sits in a side chapel and a remarkable number of day-trippers walk past the door without going in.
The Groeningemuseum for the Flemish Primitives — Van Eyck, Memling, Bosch. Two hours, and it explains a great deal about what you have been looking at outside.
Then walk north. The streets around the Begijnhof and up toward the windmills empty out within ten minutes of the centre. That is where Bruges lives.
Eating and drinking
Frites from a friture, in a paper cone, with mayonnaise, standing up. The restaurant version is a different and worse food.
Waffles come in two kinds and they are not interchangeable. The Brussels waffle is light, rectangular and eaten with toppings. The Liège waffle is dense, uneven and caramelised with pearl sugar, eaten plain in your hand. The Liège is the better one and it is what you want from a street stand.
Beer is a serious business. The good cafés keep lists running to hundreds. Ask what is local and on tap rather than ordering the name you already know — and note that Belgian beers run considerably stronger than they taste.
Chocolate: skip anything on the main square with a queue outside and a photograph of the product in the window. The good chocolatiers are a street back and do not need the signage.
Ghent, if you have to choose
Worth saying plainly: Ghent is half an hour from Brussels, nearly as beautiful, and a working university city rather than a preserved one. Real population, better restaurants, students in the bars, and perhaps a third of the visitors.
It also holds the Ghent Altarpiece by the van Eyck brothers in Saint Bavo's Cathedral — one of the most important paintings in Europe, and one you can stand in front of without a scrum.
If you have one day and want a beautiful Flemish city, Bruges is the postcard and Ghent is the better day. If you have two, take both.
Practical notes
Belgian train tickets are refreshingly simple — priced by distance, no advance-purchase games, buy on the day without penalty. Unusual in Europe, and it means you can decide over breakfast.
Sunday and Monday see a number of museums and restaurants closed. Check before you build a day around one.
Brussels is the crossroads of European high-speed rail — London about two hours, Paris about an hour twenty-five, Amsterdam about two, Cologne under two. That is why Belgium is the most efficient place in Europe to stitch a multi-city trip together.
Where it fits
Belgium is rarely the whole trip and should not be. It is the best three nights you can add to a London, Paris or Amsterdam itinerary, and the trains make it nearly free in travel time. If London is the other end of your trip, our London guide covers that side.
Call Roseville Travel at (916) 782-6363 if you are building a multi-city Europe trip — the sequencing and the rail bookings are where these itineraries are won or lost.