Where to stay in Bruges: the best areas and hotels

The Markt is Bruges turned up to full volume: a huge square of gabled guild houses, horse-drawn carriages clopping across the cobbles and the Belfry rising over it all, 366 steps to the top if your legs are up to it. Two minutes away, the Burg is smaller and grander, home to the Gothic town hall and the Basilica of the Holy Blood.

Stay here and you can do the big sights before breakfast, while the tour groups are still on the motorway. The grandest address is a five-star in a 15th-century former ducal palace, under 300 metres from the Markt. Around it are a smart four-star with a wellness centre near the town hall, a comfortable hotel 100 metres from the square and another that looks straight at the Belfry. Expect bustle until mid-evening, then a surprising hush.

Just south of the Burg the canals bend around the Rozenhoedkaai, the Rosary Quay, and produce the most photographed view in Belgium: water, willow, brick and belfry in one frame. The Dijver runs on from there past the Groeninge Museum and its Flemish masters, and boat tours putter by all day.

This is the Bruges of romantic weekends, and its hotels know it. A renovated 15th-century cloister sits directly on the Dijver, filled with antiques, tapestries and old paintings. A family-owned boutique hotel occupies an 18th-century carriage house on a quiet street steps from the Rosary Quay. Another stands right on a canal with its own swimming pool, three minutes from the Belfry. Book early: these places are small and popular.

West of the Markt, the main shopping streets run past the brick bulk of St Salvator's Cathedral to 't Zand, a wide open square with the modern concert hall at one end and café terraces along the sides. It is where Bruges does its everyday business, and it feels a notch more lived-in than the squares further east.

Hotels here tend to offer a little more room for the money. A 17th-century former monastery is now a large four-star, ten minutes on foot from the Markt. A family-run boutique hotel near the cathedral occupies an 18th-century corner house that was once a bishop's home, and a historic hotel with 43 rooms sits midway between 't Zand and the Markt. The station is an easy walk, which helps with luggage.

The southern tip of the old town is its gentlest corner. The Minnewater, the Lake of Love, lies in a leafy park with a bridge made for dawdling, and beside it the Begijnhof hides behind its gate: a hushed courtyard of whitewashed houses and tall trees, carpeted with daffodils in spring. The Halve Maan brewery is just up the street for when virtue wears thin.

It is the handiest area if you arrive by train, as the station is a short walk away, and it suits families who want space to run about. A fully renovated four-star stands right next to the lake, a modern hotel with a terrace is close to the Begijnhof, and a family-friendly hotel nearby opens a heated outdoor pool in fine weather. The Markt is about 15 minutes on foot.

Walk ten minutes north or east of the Markt and the tour groups simply stop. The canals widen, the houses turn residential and you start to notice details: almshouse gardens, lace curtains, a heron on a mooring post. Keep going east and you reach the grassy ramparts, where a row of windmills still stands on the old city wall.

The hotels along these quays are some of the most peaceful in town. One sits beside a canal with a snug bar and an open fire; another overlooks a tranquil stretch of water next to the little yacht harbour and serves breakfast in an orangery above a rose garden. A 1926 townhouse offers classic rooms a scenic 15-minute canal walk from the Belfry. Choose this side if you like your evenings slow.

Driving into medieval Bruges is nobody's idea of a holiday. The lanes are narrow, the one-way system is fiendish and parking is limited, so visitors with a car often do better just outside the ring. Out here the city gives way quickly to woods, meadows and flat, well-signed cycle paths.

A four-star cycling hotel about three kilometres from the main square looks out over open nature and makes an easy base for pedalling into town. Another, in a quiet green setting on the outskirts, pairs hotel rooms with a restaurant, and a large modern hotel a short drive from the centre has on-site parking. You trade the canal view for calm, space and a simpler arrival.

The North Sea is closer to Bruges than most visitors realise. Blankenberge, a short train ride away, is a classic Belgian seaside town: a broad sandy beach, a long promenade, a pier, a casino and chips eaten out of paper cones in a stiff breeze. Zeebrugge, next door, is the port, with its own beach beside the harbour.

In summer it makes sense to turn the trip around: sleep by the sea and visit Bruges for the day. Blankenberge has a beachfront hotel with an indoor pool and sauna, a modern hotel by the station with a heated rooftop pool, and a pretty townhouse with a garden 200 metres from the sand. Children get their sandcastles, you get your Flemish primitives.