3 Best Sights in Bruges, Bruges and the Coast

Arguably the city's finest museum lies within a palace built in the 15th century for the Van Gruuthuses, a powerful family who made their money on the exclusive right to sell gruut, an herbal mixture used for flavoring beer. Louis, the patriarch behind its rise, was a businessman, diplomat, patron, and a lover of culture. The museum tells the story of Bruges through its most powerful family and their legacy of art and relics, and through the museum's own collection of crafts—lace, amber, porcelain, jewels—that formed the backbone of the city's trade. The building interior itself is magnificent in its own right---it's a warren of narrow staircases joining rooms with grand stone fireplaces, and some with balconies offering beautiful vistas across the city. As a mark of the family's power, a private chapel in the palace has a window built directly into the adjoining Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk, allowing family members to attend services there without having to mingle with the general public.

Similar to the tablet-dominated Beer Museum around the corner, Historium Brugge uses technology (film and virtual reality) to depict the story of the city's golden age. Housed on the site of the old Waterhalle, a vast warehouse that was once at the heart of the trading hub that was medieval Bruges, the museum makes fine use of its impressive setting. However, whether you learn anything depends less on your tolerance for history and more on your ability to absorb tales of romance played out on virtual reality headsets.

A row of 17th-century whitewashed almshouses originally built for retired shoemakers now holds an engaging Folklore Museum. Within each house is a reconstructed historic interior: a grocery shop, a living room, a tavern, a cobbler’s workshop, a classroom, a pharmacy, and a kitchen. Another wing holds a tailor’s shop and a collection of old advertising posters. You can end your tour at the suitably historic museum café, In de Zwarte Kat (the “Black Cat”).