Bruges, Belgium: A Charming Ancient Belgian Town

Bruges is an enchanting small city. It has all the benefits that the county of Belgium offers, including chocolate, great beer, waffles, & fries (see the Brussels blog post). But offers these things in a town built in the 1300’s with beautiful old buildings and winding canals.

The town becomes very busy during the day with many tour buses making day trips. If you stay here for a few nights, you get the pleasure of having the town to yourself after all the buses leave.

I think part of the reason Bruges has become so popular is all the movies that have been filmed here. In Bruges is the most obvious, but The Monuments Men, The Nuns Story, & PK are a few other.

We stayed at a hostel called Hostel Lybeer. As far as hostels goes, this was a decent one with a wonderful atmosphere. The large building used to be a very wealthy persons home.

There is an incredibly homey feel to the shared space with candle light, a decorated piano, and wooden bar with many Belgian beer options.

There are more than 85 chocolate shops in this small town.

There is also a chocolate museum called Choco-Story.

There is one of the coolest breweries right in the middle of town. De Halve Maan Brewery had a beer pipe that runs for 3,200 meters (2 miles) underground, similar to a water pipe. If you happen to live on top of where the pipe runs, you have the option of tapping into the pipe to have continuous beer on tap.

The most popular beer at this brewery is called Bruges Zot, which means Bruges fool.

There are several beer tasting spots to try a plethora of Belgian beer. We visited The Beer Wall which is a beer tasting stop with a beautiful terrace on the water to sample many different Belgian beers.

And just as the name would suggest, there is a huge wall full of different types of beer. There is a store to do some shopping as well with tons of unique beers.

Our favorite bar we visited was called De Garre. This is a very local bar and would not have been one we found without some local insight. The house beer is brewed and exclusively sold here. It is a 14% beer though so one or two is plenty! It also comes with some pearl onions and cheese.

There were plenty of unique style beers with creative advertising everywhere.

We did the Legends Free Walking Tour and learned a ton about Bruges. This city was under French rule prior to 1301. The French government imposed heavy taxes, tortured people, and forced them to speak French instead of their native Flemish language.

The people revolted and went door to door killing French people living in the city. When the King got wind of what was happening, he sent an army of strong soldier.

When the soldiers arrived they saw a pathetic looking army waiting for them and thought it would be an easy win. The Bruges soldiers lifted a gate holding back water and drowned 8,000 French soldier.

This battle took place on July 11, 1302 and was called Battle of Golden Spurst.

The medieval bell tower that sits in the middle of the town began to be built in the 1200’s. It took 300 years for the entire structure to be complete. You can climb the 366 stairs to the top and get a view of the entire area.

One thing you will notice is the streets are much wider than most medieval cities. This is because Bruges was a major trade center.

Bruges has one of the oldest standing hospitals built 750 years ago. In the 1200’s, if women became widows they were kicked out on the streets since all the property and possessions were in the mans name. These women came together and began taking care of people for donations to form a hospital.

They later used these donations to form a community called Biggens. There were 350 women and children living in this community. You were required to be single and catholic to live here. Today catholic nuns live in the community.

One of my favorite stories we were told on our tour was about this community. Men are still not allowed to stay here overnight. There was a man who came to paint the beautiful landscape within the nuns walls. He had a few too many drinks and passed out under a tree. A nun woke him up with a kick and told him he had to go. He woke up with an apology and left.

The next day a local came to the nun who kick the man out. He told her she needed to be careful who she was kicking out of their facilities. It was Winston Churchill who she had kicked out who had taken up painting in his retired years.

A popular place to check out is the Lovers Bridge. If you walk over the bridge with your partner you will forever be in love. This folklore belief was sparked by the legend of lovers who couldn’t be together, Mina and Stromberg.

Mina was forced by her father to marry another man while her warrior love was off at battle. She ran in the woods and eventually died of exhaustion. When Stromberg returned, he built a dam and buried her under the bridge. He then let the water flow over her grave in the area that is today called the Lake of Love.

On the outskirts of this small community you will find an area with windmills. There is a beautiful running path and some mom & pop style restaurants nearby.

As far as food goes, you can find fries everywhere here. It seems Bruges has their own spin on the Canadian poutine.

And of course, you should eat plenty of waffles while you are here. We did our research and found Fred’s has the best waffles (with ice cream!) around.

Fred’s is very close to the main square. We got our waffles (and ice cream) and went to the square to see the tower lit up at night and listen to the enchanting music it was playing. A great end to our trip in Bruges!