Explore Bruges

The Markt is the central square of Bruges, used for markets since the 10th century. The 13th-century Belfry and its market halls stand on the south side, gabled guild houses and the neo-Gothic Provincial Court line the others, and a statue of Jan Breydel and Pieter de Coninck stands in the middle.

The Historium is a multimedia attraction on the Markt in Bruges, opened in 2012 in a neo-Gothic building that was meant as the provincial governor's residence. Seven themed rooms use film, sets and effects to tell a story set in the city's 15th-century golden age, and the building also has a virtual reality tour of Bruges in 1435 and a Gothic tower to climb.

The Belfry of Bruges is the medieval bell tower on the Markt, begun around 1240 above the city's market hall and given its octagonal upper stage in 1483–1487. Now 83 metres tall after its spire burned in 1741, it can be climbed by 366 steps past the former treasury to the carillon, and it is part of the UNESCO-listed Belfries of Belgium and France.

The Bruges Beer Experience is a beer museum on the upper floors of the former post office at the corner of the Markt and Breidelstraat in Bruges, a building by Louis Delacenserie opened in 1891. Opened in 2014, it traces beer from Mesopotamia to the brewers of Bruges, the Trappists and modern brewing, with a tablet guide in ten languages and a tasting bar.

The Burg is a square in Bruges on the site of the fortress of the early Counts of Flanders. Around it stand the Gothic City Hall, begun in 1376, the Basilica of the Holy Blood, the classicist palace of the Liberty of Bruges and the outline of the former St. Donatian's Cathedral, demolished after 1799.

The Basilica of the Holy Blood on the Burg in Bruges is a double chapel built from 1134 as the private chapel of the Counts of Flanders. The Romanesque lower chapel of St Basil survives almost unchanged, while the upper chapel, rebuilt in Gothic style and redecorated in the 19th century, keeps the relic of the Holy Blood; a small museum and treasury adjoin it.

Bruges City Hall on the Burg square was built between 1376 and 1421 and is one of the oldest city halls of the former Burgundian Netherlands, with a late-Gothic stone façade lined with statues under canopies. Inside, the Gothic Hall has a double-vaulted timber ceiling and murals by Albrecht De Vriendt showing scenes from the city's history.

The Frietmuseum is a museum of the potato and Belgian fries, opened in 2008 by Eddy Van Belle in the Saaihalle on Vlamingstraat in Bruges, a Gothic hall of 1399 that served Genoese merchants in the 15th century. Its three floors cover the potato's origins in Peru, the history of fries and the tools used to cut and fry them.

The Gruuthusemuseum is housed in the 15th-century town palace of the lords of Gruuthuse, beside the Church of Our Lady. Restored in the late 19th century, it shows applied arts from the 15th to the 19th century, including Flemish tapestries, lace, silver and a terracotta bust of Charles V, and its private oratory looks into the church.

St. Salvator's Cathedral is the cathedral of Bruges, a Gothic brick church built from 1250 on the site of a parish church in use since the 10th century, and a cathedral only since 1834. After a fire in 1839 the English architect Robert Chantrell gave its west tower a neo-Romanesque top; inside are a late-Gothic choir stall, 18th-century tapestries and a treasury.

The Church of Our Lady is a Gothic church built mainly in the 13th to 15th centuries, and its 115.6-metre brick tower is the tallest structure in Bruges. A marble Madonna and Child carved by Michelangelo around 1504 stands in a side chapel, and the choir holds the tombs of Charles the Bold and his daughter Mary of Burgundy.

Old St. John's Hospital was founded in the mid-12th century beside the Church of Our Lady and cared for pilgrims, travellers and the sick until 1977; its buildings are among the oldest surviving hospital buildings in Europe. The medieval wards now hold a museum of the hospital's history and works by Hans Memling, and the old pharmacy can also be visited.

The Volkskundemuseum is the folklore museum of Musea Brugge, housed since 1973 in a row of modest workmen's houses on Balstraat in Bruges, the former Schoenmakersrente. Its rooms recreate a village classroom, a grocer's, a pharmacy, a confectioner's and craft workshops, and the visit ends in the museum's own tavern, De Zwarte Kat.

The beguinage of Bruges was founded around 1244 by Margaret of Constantinople as a community of religious laywomen. About thirty white-painted houses from the 16th to 18th centuries and a Gothic church stand around a tree-shaded lawn; since 1927 Benedictine nuns have lived here instead of beguines.