What Travelers Say About Bruges
Bruges is the capital of West Flanders, in the Dutch-speaking north of Belgium, and is often called the best-preserved medieval town in Europe. In the 12th to 15th centuries it was one of the continent's richest cities, a major hub of the cloth trade with links across the whole Hanseatic world, and home to what many consider the first stock exchange. Then the channel linking it to the sea silted up, trade moved to Antwerp, and Bruges slid into a long, quiet decline.
That decline is the reason it looks the way it does. Too poor to knock things down and rebuild, the city simply kept its medieval streets, brick gable houses, and canals largely intact. In the late 19th century writers and travellers rediscovered it as a romantic, slightly melancholy time capsule, and tourism has been its main business ever since. The historic centre is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
It is a small, walkable place made for wandering: humpbacked bridges over the canals that earn it the nickname Venice of the North, the tall Belfry above the market square, horse carts on the cobbles, and well over fifty chocolate shops. It gets very crowded in the middle of the day, so the quiet early mornings and the evenings, once the tour groups have left, are the best times to enjoy it.