The Ultimate Bruges Experience: Feasting, Wandering, and Sky-High Views

Bruges is like a fairytale town. It’s filled with cathedrals and old buildings with narrow winding cobblestone streets. There is a giant tower in the city of the town square called “The Belfry.” I climbed to the top of that tower on my last day there but let me tell you about the whole experience first.

The Eurostar train from Amsterdam to Brussels was a pretty great experience, very smooth ride. Then had to switch to the IC train in Brussels to get to Bruges. In my opinion, the Eurostar seats were very spacious and comfortable. And the IC train was more like I regular train and it was a bit cramped – not too bad of a ride though. I arrived at the station in Bruges and would have walked to my hotel but it was raining.

I decided to take a taxi and he got me there in about 5ish minutes since it was only about a mile away. The hotel I stayed at was very old. Definitely had some remodeling done in the 60’s-70’s but nothing since then. The room was fine enough for me since it was plenty spacious, but the bathroom was tiny. This was a trend I noticed in the different budget hotel rooms I stayed in across a few countries in Europe.

Location of the hotel was perfect. I was able to walk to the town square in about 2-3 minutes and there were plenty of places to eat in the area. I got to my hotel around 5ish and quickly realized that restaurants don’t open for dinner service until 6:30 at a minimum. So I walked around the town a bit before dinner.

Bruges is such a wonderful town full of boutique shops, cafes and all sorts of historic buildings. So many cool buildings to look at and they are all a short distance away from each other. I learned more about the history of Bruges during my walking tour the next day.

My first meal in Bruges was Waterzooi, which is kinda like a seafood soup. I had waterzooi at the restaurant next to my hotel. This restaurant was super old and still had all the old chandlers and windows. While I was sitting there, this one guy was playing the saxophone. It was pretty good and I was the only one sitting in the restaurant so it was cool to have this private show all to myself.

Then after a few minutes, some people start walking in and talking to the saxophonist. Then more people walk in with a bunch of camera equipment. They start recording this guy on stage playing the saxophone. They are also recording a separate guy sitting there enjoying the saxophonist.

After he was done playing, they both sat down and did an interview. He talked about how Jazz became popular during and after WW2. It was a fun experience to overhear this conversation while I was enjoying my waterzooi. The meal was delicious BTW! Here is the obligatory SHLAYED picture 🙂

After that, I walked around the town a bit more. It’s night time now so it’s a slightly different vibe. The lights on the old buildings create a different look than the daytime. Makes the towers seem even bigger. I tried the waffle with chocolate for dessert since I was in Belgium. Twas delish!

The next day I joined a walking tour. We met up at the Grand Place, which is what they call their town square. The tour guide told us a bit about the buildings in the Grand Place before heading over to the Basilica of the Holy Blood. This was a very old and minor basilica most famous for housing a phial claimed to contain a cloth with Christ’s blood. After that we walked through the City Hall and got onto a boat for a canal tour.

The canal tour was great and it’s so cool seeing the old buildings from that perspective. The style of buildings is very similar to Amsterdam but on a smaller scale. It’s also so interesting to see that the buildings foundations are all part of the canal walls themselves. After the canal tour, we continued the walking tour. I really enjoy doing walking tours when in a new city since I can ask potentially naive questions to a local.

One interesting thing I found about Bruges is that since it is a UNESCO city, none of the architecture can be changed within the old walled city. Even in a case of replacing a building that was destroyed, the new building should integrate harmoniously while being distinct from the original architectural composition. The rules for this preservation came from The Venice Charter of 1964, which became the basis for numerous national and international heritage conservation laws. The charter influenced the creation of organizations such as UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention in 1972.

The tour ended on the southern part of the old city next to a small park for geese. These are “royal geese” and this park is protected just for them. Now it is lunch time and ya boiii is hungryyyy. There were lots of restaurants on the walk back and most were quite busy. Bistrobar Boreas was packed for outside dining but I was able to get a table inside.

This meal might have been the best meal that I had in all of Europe. Moules frites is a dish that is very famous in Belgium, in fact it is the national dish. It’s steamed mussels with garlic and white wine served with fries and a mussel-flavored dipping sauce. This was so delicious and each bite was even more delectable. The combination of the unctuous fries with the mussel sauce and garlicky mussels was superb!

After that wonderful meal, I was in a blissful daze and started slowly wandering around the town. Now it is mid-day on a Saturday so the streets are packed with people going to the cafes and shops. It was a fun vibe in the town square. There even were these two guys riding around on a weird vehicle dancing and giving roses to women.

I ended up walking all around the protected old city and made my way to the end where it meets the modern town of Bruges. Super nice neighborhoods and you can tell the development in the area was done with intention not to overshadow the nearby old city. I walked along different parks until re-entering the old section. When I go back to Bruges, I would love to bike ride around the city. They have a lot of bike trails, so I think that would be a lot of fun.

Went back to my hotel for a bit to chill before going out for dinner. Dinner that evening was a steak with a nice bearnaise sauce and frites. The Belgians love their fries and this is the trip where I really started dipping toes in the Mayonnaise department – more on that in my Brussels blog post. After dinner, I had a nice waffle with nutella and hot chocolate at a nearby cafe with a good view of the Belfry. Life is good 🙂

The next day I have a train ride to Brussels at 1 o’clock, so in the morning I climbed the Belfry. The Belfry is 83 meters (272 feet) tall and 366 steps to the top. I already booked my ticket online and was one of the first people to go up when they opened at 9 am. It’s a good climb of steps to take but they are a few landing levels where you can pause and catch your breath. You can also check out Bell room and see how the inner workings of that system works. This bell tower plays different songs throughout the day.

The higher up you climb the more narrow the staircase gets. And at the very top, it gets into single file but only for a 10-20 feet. This is why you have to get tickets for entry and they stagger the amount of people that are in the tower at once. The views from the top are spectacular. This is the tallest building in the whole city so you can see pretty far. I didn’t realize until I was up there how close we are the ocean and there is a container port not too far away.

They have the distances and directions of all the great cities of the world carved into the stone ledge. This was worth the climb and I ended up hanging out at the top for about 15ish minutes. Walking down the tower was a lot more fun than the walk up 😉 I bought a few souvenirs in the gift shop then hungout in the town square for a little bit longer. This was my face once it really hit me that I have to leave this place…

It was another beautiful day in Bruges, so I was able to walk to the train station once I was all packed up. Visiting Bruges was recommended to me by a few people and I am so glad I made the trip over here. Like I said in the beginning, it feels like you are walking around in a fairytale. Best way to describe it really. Can’t wait to be back. Thanks for reading and talk to you soon! 🙂