3 day trip itinerary to the charming Bruges (Brugge) in Belgium

Hello readers,

Me and husband did a 3 day trip (3 nights, 4 days) in November 2019 to Bruges from Düsseldorf. Some people will say that's a lot of time for such a small city. For us it was a city break over a long weekend and we did not want it to be hectic and hence spending time doing nothing and wandering around the streets aimlessly was also part of the itinerary 😄.

Expectations versus reality

Expectations - As always I had done my research on Tripadvisor, Youtube, Google and talked to friends who had visited Bruges and hence knew what to expect. We had already visited Gent and Brussels few years back so were aware of how things work in Belgium.

Belgium is famous for beer, waffles, fries and chocolate. So having all of these was definitely on the agenda. High expectations for these 'must-haves'.

The weather was going to be rainy, cloudy and cold but I am now used to such weather in Germany so we were not going to let weather spoil our enthusiasm.

Reality - Bruges turned out looking far more old than I expected.
Beer, waffles, fries and chocolate did not let us down and we relished them till they satisfied our soul. 😊😋
Weather was bad as expected. We were mentally prepared to brave the rain and went ahead with our itinerary.

Itinerary

As per our interests this is what we did in those three days.

Day 1 (half):

We planned to reach by 6 pm but due to a minor incident on the highway we were delayed by about 90 minutes and finally reached the city center around 7.30 pm. Our earlier plan was to check-in, park the car at the hotel and then take public transportation to the city center for dinner and drinks however as we reached late we decided to have dinner first.

It was a Thursday evening and the city center looked almost desolate 😕 except for a few cyclists.

I had already found a parking garage beforehand, so we parked there and went for dinner at a nearby restaurant. After dinner we called it a day and went to the hotel. We skipped going to a bar 'Le Trappiste'  which was on my itinerary.

Day 2:

Bruges has good public transport connections via buses. We bought tickets inside the bus from the driver - 3 euros per person and reached city center from our hotel which was 3 km away.

We had a lovely breakfast at Gingerbread Tea Room.

With our tummies full, we walked to the meeting point of 'Legends of Bruges free walking tour'.

Walking tours are our preferred way of exploring a city.

We had chosen the start time of 9.45 am and finished the ~90 minutes tour in relative peace before the hordes of tourists filled the streets. The tour guide offered to take this picture while I held his umbrella.

As the time went by the streets in the city center were so crowded, it was difficult to imagine these are the same desolate streets from the previous night. It was the public holiday of 1st November (All Saints' Day) hence there was more rush. 

The walking tour gave us a good idea of which places we wanted to visit on our own.

As it was rainy, windy day with limited visibility we decided to skip going up the famous Belfry tower.

Next stop was the beer wall. Its basically a beer shop but we did not buy anything here. 

After looking at the wall and the store we went to the nearby shop called The Bottle Shop. Belgium has the most unusual flavors of beer - cherry, coconut, mango 😍 to name a few. We tried the coconut flavored beer and chose which beer we would like to buy to take back home before we left Bruges.

The tour guide had recommended us to buy chocolates in 'Pol Depla Chocolatier' which according to him sells handmade authentic Belgian chocolates. So that was our next stop 😀

We stopped by a small eatery for some calories and enjoyed having Belgian fries and waffles.

Next we visited the Church of Our lady, Basilica of the Holy Blood and Begijnhof. 

In the afternoon, we had to choose a tour from these options

• Brewery Bourgogne des Flandres
• OR Huisbrouwerij De Halve Maan 
• Or Museum: Bruges Beer Experience

We chose to visit the brewery Huisbrouwerij De Halve Maan and took the 3 pm tour.

It is an active functional brewery in the middle of the city center however as it was a holiday we could not see the live beer making process. We would have loved to see the machinery in action. 

The tour ends with a glass of unfiltered fresh beer.

We wandered about the streets and came across a Thai restaurant Sivalai. The friendly owner greeted us at the door as we were the first customers at 6 pm. After dinner we called it a day and returned to our hotel with a bus.

Day 3:

Started the day with a breakfast of omelette, croissant and hot chocolate in a restaurant at the main market square. There is an ample variety of restaurants in the square.

We had booked a beer tasting and waffle making workshop for 11:00 AM so headed to that location.

It was definitely time well spent! It was 12 of us with 6 from Norway, 2 from the US and 2 from the Netherlands. It was interesting to see that each country prefers different toppings on the waffles😏

After the workshop we went back to the market square and went in the Historium building. They have a museum and a VR activity about the history of the city but we were only interested in this view from the balcony. 😎

Wherever we are, whatever we are doing, my husband cannot miss a Manchester United game. Hence watching the match in a sports bar was on the itinerary😁

I had chosen The Monk and it turned out to be the perfect place to drink, chill and watch the game. We ended up watching two matches as the weather outside was really bad.
In the evening, we took a stroll through the city center and went for dinner to an Indian restaurant.

Day 4 (half)

As we wanted to buy beer from The Bottle Shop, we checked out of the hotel by 9 am and went to the city center. Had a hearty breakfast in a restaurant on the market square, bought a lot of beer for us and our friends and left Bruges feeling good.

Places we missed but would have liked to go:

1. LeTrappiste for a drink
2. Books and Brunch - for books and brunch 😄
3. Sand Sculpture Festival Ostend - 30 minutes away by car