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Bruges city guide and tourist information
Cosmopolitan and bourgeois, Bruges is one of the best preserved pre-motorised cities in Europe and offers the kind of charms rarely available elsewhere. Part of Flanders, the Dutch-speaking northern part of Belgium, Bruges is a postcard perfect stop on any tour of Europe.
What to see in Bruges
Once over the circling canal and inside the city walls, Bruges closes in around you with street after street of charming historic houses and a canal always nearby. In recent years, the city has turned so much towards tourism the locals sometimes complain they are living in Disney-land. The newly cleaned houses should however not confuse you; they are truly centuries old. And if you can get away from the chocolate-shops, you can visit some more quiet areas s.a. St. Anna, and imagine what life in the late middle ages must have been like.
Some highlights:
Groeninge Museum (Dijver 12, 7 days 9.30am-5pm, 8 EUR entry) is also known as 'The city museum of Fine Arts', and has a collection of artworks that span several centuries (14th-20th), focussing mainly on works by painters who lived and worked in Bruges.
What to do in Bruges
Have beer in the Grand Place, climb the clock tower, go to Minnewater Park or Van Eyck Plein, nothing is very far away in Bruges; it's a remarkably compact city.
Tour boats -- It's essential to take a ride on one of the tour boats around the canals - the multilingual guides provide a potted history of the city in just a few minutes - at only a few Euros, it's the best introduction to Bruges. A boat tour will show you places which are otherwise unreachable, as not every canal runs next to a street. In 2005, the adult fare was about EUR 5.70 each.
Walks and rides -- everywhere, although there are plenty of horse-drawn tourist buggies and bicycles for hire in the cobbled streets as well. The horse carriage tours are nice but expensive.
If you are a runner, try running the 7km circle around the old center. Walk along the canal and see all of the medieval gates that used to control the traffic in and out of Bruges. Simply stunning!
Based on work by WikiTravel - Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0
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