By Nick Hammond, Vice President of Group Sales, Sacramento Travel
Bruges is about an hour from Brussels by train, and trains run several times an hour. As a day trip it could not be easier — which is the problem.
Everyone arrives between ten and eleven, and everyone leaves between four and six. For those six hours the medieval centre holds a crowd it was not built for. Arrive at nine or stay until eight and it is a different, far better city.
If you are doing it as a day trip
Take an early train. Brussels to Bruges is roughly an hour from Brussels-Midi or Brussels-Central. Be walking into the Markt by 9am and you get the square nearly to yourself.
Belgian domestic train tickets are refreshingly simple — priced by distance, no advance-purchase games, and cheap. You can buy on the day without penalty, which is unusual in Europe and means you can decide over breakfast.
The four things worth your day:
- The Markt and the Belfry. The tower climb is 366 steps and the view is worth every one.
- A canal boat. Thirty minutes, inexpensive, and the city was built to be seen from the water.
- The Church of Our Lady, which holds Michelangelo's Madonna and Child — the only sculpture of his that left Italy during his lifetime. It is quietly extraordinary and most day-trippers walk past the door.
- The Groeningemuseum for the Flemish primitives, if you have two hours.
Then walk north. The streets around the Begijnhof and up toward Sint-Janshuismolen empty out within ten minutes of leaving the centre, and that is where Bruges actually lives.
Why one night changes everything
Here is what a day trip cannot give you: Bruges after the coaches leave.
At about six the crowd drains out, the squares go quiet, the lamps come on along the canals, and the city becomes the thing it is in the photographs. Hotel rooms in the centre are not expensive by European standards. One night converts Bruges from a nice afternoon into the part of the trip people remember.
If you are choosing between two nights in Brussels or one in Brussels and one in Bruges, take the second option every time.
The case for Ghent instead
I say this to clients often enough that it belongs here.
Ghent is roughly half an hour from Brussels, it is nearly as beautiful as Bruges, and it is a working university city rather than a preserved one. It has a proper population, better restaurants, students in the bars, and perhaps a third of the tourists.
It also holds the Ghent Altarpiece by the van Eyck brothers in Saint Bavo's Cathedral — one of the most important paintings in Western art and, unlike almost anything of comparable stature, something you can stand in front of without a scrum.
If you have one day and you want a beautiful Flemish city, Bruges is the postcard and Ghent is the better day.
Do both, and Antwerp too
Belgium is small and the rail network is dense. From Brussels, Bruges is an hour, Ghent half an hour, Antwerp forty-five minutes. You can base yourself in Brussels for four nights and see all three without moving hotel — and Brussels itself, which visitors are consistently rude about, has the best art nouveau architecture in Europe and a genuinely great food scene once you leave the Grand Place.
Belgium as a rail hub
The strategic reason to spend time here at all: Brussels is the crossroads of European high-speed rail.
London is about two hours by Eurostar. Paris is about an hour and twenty-five. Amsterdam is about two hours. Cologne is under two.
That makes Belgium the most efficient place in Europe to stitch a multi-city trip together, and it is why we often build it into itineraries as a real stop rather than a connection. Three nights in Belgium between London and Amsterdam costs you almost no travel time and adds a country.
Practical notes
Eat the frites properly — from a friture, in a cone, with mayonnaise, standing up. The sit-down restaurant version is not the same thing.
Waffles are two different foods. The Brussels waffle is light and rectangular, eaten with toppings. The Liège waffle is dense, uneven and caramelised with pearl sugar, eaten plain in your hand. The Liège one is better and it is what you want from a street stand.
Beer is a serious business and the good cafés keep lists of hundreds. Ask what is local and on tap rather than ordering the name you already know.
Sunday and Monday see a fair number of museums and restaurants closed. Check before you build a day around one.
Fitting it into a bigger trip
Belgium is rarely the whole trip, and it 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.
Belgium pairs naturally with the Mediterranean legs — Tuscany and Spain both want the same shoulder months Belgium is best in.
Call Sacramento Travel at (916) 454-2858 if you are building a multi-city Europe trip — the sequencing and the rail bookings are where these itineraries are won or lost, and Belgium is usually the piece that makes the map work.