Hotels in Brugge

Bruges is a near-perfectly preserved medieval city, its cobbled centre a UNESCO World Heritage Site laced with canals that have earned it the nickname Venice of the North. The Belfry on the Markt square climbs 366 steps for a view over stepped-gable rooftops, while the Basilica of the Holy Blood, a twelfth-century church on Burg Square, holds a relic said to have been brought back from the Second Crusade and carried through the streets every Ascension Day in the Procession of the Holy Blood.

The Begijnhof, a walled UNESCO-listed community of whitewashed houses once home to lay religious women, offers a quiet contrast to the roughly hundred chocolate shops competing for attention nearby. It is extremely popular, and day-trippers from Brussels can make the centre feel more like a theme park than a town by early afternoon. Stay within the old centre itself, near the Markt or the canals, to enjoy the city in the early morning and evening once the coach parties have gone.