Planning a Trip

Bruges's tourist office's mailing address and contact information is Toerisme Brugge, Post Box 744, 8000 Brugge (tel. 050/44-46-46; fax 050/44-46-45; www.brugge.be). The organization's walk-in office is In&Uit Brugge, Concertgebouw, 't Zand 34, inside the city's Concert Hall, about midway between the rail station and the heart of town. The office is open Friday to Wednesday from 10am to 6pm, and Thursday from 10am to 8pm (closed Jan 1 and Dec 25). The efficient staffers here can make last-minute hotel reservations and provide brochures that outline walking, coach, canal, and horse-drawn carriage tours. Ask for the free annual events@brugge brochure and monthly Exit newsletter; both are directories of current goings-on.

City Layout -- You could liken Bruges's Old Town to a circular archery target outlined by the ring canal and with two bull's-eyes representing the side-by-side monumental squares called the Markt and the Burg. Beyond these central points are other more or less concentric circles of places of interest, and these attractions are generally thicker on the ground the closer in to the center of town you are, and more spread out as you move through a network of narrow streets that fan out from the two squares. The ring canal opens at its southern end to become the Minnewater (Lake of Love), filled with swans and other water birds, and bordered by the Begijnhof and a fine park. Beyond the southern rim of the Minnewater is the rail station.

Outside the ring canal are residential neighborhoods -- they were formerly separate gemeenten (districts) with their own local government and not part of Bruges at all. These districts have relatively few points of interest when compared to the attractions-packed center, so the likelihood is you won't see much of them on your visit.