Bruges Walking Tour – Markt, Burg, Rozenhoedkaai, and Canals

Posted on Jan 4, 2013 by jkozik in family, travel | 0 comments

For Day 3 of our family vacation to Belgium, we took the train from our hotel in Brussels for a Bruges Walking Tour, where we wandered our way through a wonderful medieval picture book of a city.

We got off at the train at Bruges Station, followed the signs to the historic center — about a 15 minute walk. We started our Bruges Walking Tour at the Markt, then we wondered along Sint-Jansstraat to Boomgaardstraat to the Langestraat bridge over the Sint-Annarei canal. We then walked along the Groenerei canal and found our way to the Burg / Castle Square.

We went for a tour of the Stadhuis / Town Hall, had a big lunch at Tom Pouce Restaurant on the square. Two of us went to the top of the Belfort (need tickets, kinda of a long wait, but worth it); the rest of us went for a nice walk.

We walked North out of the Markt along Vlamingstraat, passed the Stadsschouwburg / City Theatre, all the way upto the Augustijnenrei canal. We made our way back to the Markt, waited for our Belfry stairclimbers on a bench. (It was drizzely all day, so it was a little wet, but that was ok).

Our group gathered, and we walked back, through the Burg square, toured the Heilig-Bloedbasiliek / Basilica of the Holy Blood, then walked through the Blind Donkey Alley to the uber famous Rozenhoedkaai / Quai of the Rosary.

The Rozenhoedkaai is a section of Bruges where the Groenerei and Dijver canals meet in a beautiful, picturesque scene — almost like a medieval painting. We took pictures, including pictures for others, then made our way over to the Groeningemuseum then finally to the iconic Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk Church to see its famous Michelangelo statue.

Our long day in Bruges was capped off with a stop at De Proeverie Tea room, from which we then wandered our way back to the Bruges Station and for a train ride back to Brussels.

Tips:

The Brussel-Central to Bruges trains run twice an hour, leaving at :00 and :21. We left at 8:21am and returned after 4pm. About $12/person, round trip.

At the Bruges station there’s a tourist information center — we stopped there, and got a really nice map. I recommend stopping there.

It’s kinda picky, but each little stretch of canal in Bruges has its own name. It was a bit of a challenge to get the captions right; I used my GPS and camera timestamps plus a couple of flemish language wiki sites to get the canal names right. It’s fun to study the history of the canals and their names.

As much as we loved Bruges for its medieval beauty, the city is not frozen in time. The place is hopping! There was a Christmas market still setup; lots of automobile traffic, and even with rainy weather, lots of people having a good time.

After spending a whole day doing our Bruges Walking Tour, we didn’t get to see everything. Plan at least 4 hours, or even more if you want to see the basic sites. Above all, be sure to spend time just wandering the streets; look for the Swans swimming in the canals; look at the beautiful gabbeled-roofed houses.