Is 4 days too long for Bruges?
 

My mother and I are doing a girls weekend in Bruges, a city both of us have wanted to visit for a long time. We booked a stay at a hotel in Bruges for 4 nights, but I'm starting to second guess our decision. I really did not have much interest in seeing Brussels since I live in a big city and am not compelled to visit another big city. We are thinking of doing a day trip to either Ghent or Antwerp (or maybe both?). Any advice or input out there?

Bruges does not require more than a full day in my opinion. Ghent would be a good outing for a day, it has a couple of nice museums and a pleasant core.

yes, and I speak from experience. I don't think Bruges is even a city, exactly, it's very small. If you take day trips, it could be fine, though. I'd reserve two days tops for seeing things in Bruges itself.

marking

it depends...do you mean will you run out of things to see or whether you will get bored? if you like bruges and want to just relax then four days is not too much.

for me, bruges does not have much life...it's pretty but not very interesting. i have been there a few times for conferences and twice for pleasure (one time was enough but the second time was free). where are you from?

I am going to disagree with the above, as I spent 3 days in Bruges and I never got bored. I did a tour with Quasi-modo tours and that was an all-day event (which I highly recommend.) You could use Bruges as your base and if you run out of things to do in Bruges, take a day trip to Damme, Ghent or Antwerp.

Brugge was great for a day only for us. However, as the above poster advised, it does make a nice base from where you can do daytrips from.

We've spent three one-week long vacations in Brugge...I absolutely love it and we're headed back for our 4th visit in Feb 2007 (last visit was recent for Xmas 2005). I don't think 4 days is too long - especially when you factor in very easy day trips via train.

4 days in Bruges is good if you do day trips to Ghent, Antwerp and up to the north sea. Rent a bike and you will find lots of interesting things around the city. You can explore along the river and see the windmills. Ask someone about the Holy Blood and where to see it in Bruges. (or do a Google search).

I spent 3 days in Bruges once and had a good time.

Larry J

Going to Belgium in Sept. and plan to spend 3 nights in Bruges, 3 or 4 in Antwerp (a day in Brussels from Antwerp). On the subject of what to do in/from Bruges, has anyone gone to Ostende for the day? Worth the trip? What about taking the tram down the coast for a bit?

You say 4 nights - so really only 3 days. I would do 2 in Bruges (it's nice to relax and see everything you want rather than rush and make compromises) and do a day in Gehnt - which is only 30 minutes away.

Rolo72- We stayed in Bruges for 4 nights and we hated to leave. I guess whether or not you will be happy is dependent upon what you like to do. First of all, we rented a room in a B&B but two days no one else was there so we had an apartment to ourselves. Our landlady was a delight. She made us a huge breakfast every day (which made us feel spoiled) and sent us off with a large sandwich apiece for lunch. We walked 6 or 7 hours everyday. We would start out as early as shops and other places opened. When the tourists descended on the town then we would head outward and go for a walk. We saw the Michangelo, the relic of the precious blood, but also found a "dollar general" type of store, a department store with 70% off- we bought my husband some funny colored underwear- He will always remember Bruges!, we found the store that sells lovely tapestry purses (My husband and I saw a purse in Venice and we both immediately fell in love with it. The woman spoke English and told us she bought it in Bruges. We found the store and now I have one.) We stopped at the deli store and bought cordon bleu and gyros which are completely different that what we know. (we were able to cook in our apartment). Our landlady had bikes so my husband biked around town. We bought a gorgeous pannier which would have cost us a fortune at home in a local bike shop. We found a jesus hanging on the cross in a church garden which we thought ws the most realistic pose we ever saw. We found all the windmills and had lunch on a park bench under a big tree in the rain next to one of the windmills. We watched the barges go through the locks. So- is 4 days too much? Not for us- we loved every minute of it. I haven't even mentioned going out to dinner two nights and trying Belgian beer, etc, etc. what do you like? lynclarke

We spent a long weekend there (4 nights and 3 days) and didn't want to leave. It's a wonderful place and has plenty to do for that period of time. Most everything is within walking distance and is a very nice change of pace from a big city. We went with my sister-in-law (who lived in London at the time) and she's been back several times for long weekends she liked it so much. As others have suggested, it would be a good base for day trip if you feel like you've covered as much as you want to in Bruges. I'd pick Ghent over Antwerp.

The WSJ today has an article datelined Ypres, Belgium about how they are still finding unexploded shells from WWI in Belgium and particularly around the Ypres Salient.

We spent 4 nights in Bruges and one of the highlights was a day tour of WWI sites with Quasimodo.

We had no trouble filling 3 1/2 November days there, early train from Amsterdam on the first day and train back to Schipol on the last. Ate well, found a great jazz club, took the canal tour, visited all the museums and walked, walked all over.

I would recommend Gent and Ieper as well.

Polly229: Oostende used to be the "Queen of Belgian coast towns", but it's a bit run down these days. If you want to see a nice coast resort, go to Knokke. It's where the rich Belgians (and Germans) go on holiday.

I think each person has a different reason for going on vacations. For those who go to Europe to see lots of things, then 4 days is too much there.

For those who go to get away and relax on vacation and don't care much about seeing lots, then it's not.

We go to see so we hit lots of places and are on the move a lot. We go back to those places we liked the most now and mix them in with other new places.

We took the Kusttram to Ostende the other day. There is nothing to see on the coast, unless you love wall to wall high rise apartment buildings. None of the old beautiful beaux arts houses are left.

We also took the railroad from Bruges to Luxembourg. It's a four hour ride each way, but the time passed quickly and we met some lovely people. Luxembourg is a small city to wander around, it is very picturesque and an afternoon is quite adequate to see quite a bit. We left Luxembourg by 7:00 and were back in Bruges by ll:00.

As I said on another post, I think Brugge is little more than an ossified set of buildings stuck in time. If you like places like that, you'll like Brugge, if not, go to Ghent-it's lively, lovely with the canals, and a castle with a moat around it in the center of town, (Gravensteen-it's nice to get up on the ramparts and look over the city) very friendly people, festivals that are going on in the summer, biergartens set up around the canals all around, lot of jazz and music locales-if I were to overnight in the area, Ghent is where I'd go, Antwerpen as well-(and I pretty much do go to these two places when I'm in Brussels visiting friends) good shopping there, and another good place to hang out.

Ghent, Antwerpen-a big yes, for interesting sights, shopping, overnight visits and hanging out. Brugge-a big no-tops half a day visit-boring!

Bruges is a place to look at through a microlense not a macrolense. God is in the details.

What a fabulous civilized life the people lead. You have to hang around a while to discover it. Every restaurant and shop is an opportunity to do some bonding because the people are so warm, friendly and intelligent.

It is one of the cleanest places you will ever visit and the locals pay the taxes to support it. The streets are scrubbed, trash picked up twice a day and people take pride in their work.

For example, we ducked into one little place at around 3PM for a coffee. Did we get a paper cup of Starbucks coffee? Not in Bruges. The coffee arrived in a handmade pottery cup which was on a matching oval shaped tray on which there was a small piece of homemade cake, a Belgian truffle and a tiny scoop of ice cream. All for the price of a cup of coffee in the States.

It is also the home of Belgian chocolate and kiosks of piping hot Belgian waffles. To die for. Need I say more?

I doubt you'd be bored in two days for sure.