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Belgium
This little Bruges hostel was a real bargain – friendly, clean and better decorated than many more expensive places I’ve stayed in around the world.
The included breakfast is pretty extensive – more than the usual cornflakes – but most importantly I think it is has the best location in Bruges. Just off T’Zand (one of the main squares), it’s a short distance from everything you could want to see or do in the city.
www.hostelbookers.com/hostels/belgium/bruges/3925/
Hoogste van Brugge 2, Bruges
Having used the been there to plan a short trip to Belgium I thought it only proper to note down my experiences for the reference of other visitors.
We travelled to Bruges in our own car via ferry from Dover to Calais – for our trip we found that this was the most cost-effective means. The drive from Calais to Bruges is not arduous and took less than 1.5 hours - sat nav makes it all the more simpler and brought us to the door of the Anselmus Hotel in central Bruges.
We found that this was a very comfortable, friendly family-run hotel that we could heartily recommend. It is ideally located close to the central area.
The city is fabulous – we enjoyed ourselves immensely. Take the canal tour and get a view of the local Flemish architecture, visit the Chocolate museum, watch the demo and sample the goods. Have hot chocolate and waffles in one of the street cafes as a mid morning snack or maybe grab a portion of chips and mayo from the mobile frituur in the market square, browse the unique shops – not too much sign of globalisation here!
For our meals we found excellent mussels and frites at Breydel-de-Coninck just off the main square at Breidelstraat 24 and for an alternative evening we could recommend the Grand Café de Comptoir with their excellent selection of international dishes, warm welcome, elegant décor and reasonable prices.
Then there’s the beer, you can visit a local brewery but if it’s the business end of the operation that you are interested in you will not be disappointed by the selection of bars and pubs and the variety of local beers on offer – close your eyes and take your pick.
The following day we visited Ypres (Ieper), about 70 km away, where you cannot fail to be stirred by the tragedy of the first world war. The museum named ‘In Flanders Fields’ in the main square of the town and only a short walk from the Menen Gate really puts a subsequent driving tour of the battlegrounds and cemeteries into vivid perspective.
Near Hill 62 you can view the trenches and let your imagination construct what it must have been like to fight in these conditions. The largest allied cemetery at ‘Tyne Cot' has over 12,000 graves regimentally aligned plus a wall of remembrance with thousands upon thousands of names of those who fell but have no known grave.
Bruges and the locality have much to offer visitors looking for a city break with a difference – I look forward to going again at some stage.
Check out the hotel at en.venere.com/belgium/hotels_brugge/hotel_anselmus.html?fe1&ref=682988, Breydel Restaurant site is www.breydel-deconinc.be/
Restaurant In den Wittenkop run by a truly enthusiastic couple. Not an encyclopaedic range of beers but great advice and what they do have is worth trying.
Work up through the Rocheforts over some great food. Talk whisky after dinner and weave a merry way home. For chocs go to Pralinette, you can watch them being made in the back of the shop. Get the orange peel in chocolate!
Lovely big rooms in Hotel De Tuilereën, super spa facilities and winner of best breakfast in Benelux! Nice people, nice place. Oh, it’s got canals and museums as well.
If you are on a low budget then you want somewhere cheap and clean to stay that is in the centre of things.
Look no further than the International Youth Hotel (not Hostel) in Langer Straat. You've got all the familiarity of being close by the city centre and a room-style reminiscent of the French motorway hotels like Formule 1 and Campanile.
It has shared ownership with the next-door dormitory-based Youth Hostel, so do not book the wrong one. Two years ago, the cost per head for a group of 20 of us was £12 per night, including meagre and just adequate breakfast, but no more than two rolls each please. Nice to find a place where average age was less than 30.
Stay at the Hotel Adornes right by the canal, five minutes' from the centre with the best breakfast ever, bicycles to use to travel futher afield for free and comfortable rooms and excellent service. The perfect place for a very relaxing weekend.
If you want to impress without breaking the bank I recommend the Jan Brito Hotel. It’s a stylish 16th century building round the corner from the Berg Square, romantic canals and museums.
The Baroness de Giey package was great fun and value – three nights' bed and breakfast, transfers, boat trip and two very good dinners at a local restaurant – we were stuffed with lots of rich Belgian specialties including garlic snails. A snip at 275 euros per person at weekends.
Calis is my favourite restaurant in Bruges (is on Hoogstraat). The food is sublime, service warm and efficient and it's great value. They also run a guest house!
Bruges is stunningly beautiful but to truly appreciate it, you need a hotel that is central but away from the main tourist area, with rooms at canalside level, by a picturesque old bridge, with a view of a chocolate shop and with a courtyard that is open air and allows you to feel that you're in a country palace.
The Hotel Ter Reien on Langestraat offers all of this, together with reasonable prices, friendly staff and a fantastic breakfast.
For a very special (and expensive) treat have the champagne breakfast at the Hotel de Tuilerien.
Hotel Karos (very close to centre) has a quiet environment, friendly staff, and is clean and spacious. It is equipped with a sauna, a bar, a leisure area and so much more.
Somewhere different to stay in the very heart of Brugge and a short distance from the railway station - De Barge Hotel.
Not only has the interior been sympathetically redesigned with a suitable nautical theme, the excellent restaurant and extremely helpful and friendly staff reward selective travellers with a memorable experience.
Bruges is very agreeable when day-trippers have left. I recommend renting a house or apartment.
You get a cab from the station to the hotel a few minutes away, get a swim in and take dinner in the hotel restaurant (the fish is great) before checking out the city from the back of a horse drawn carriage and doing a great tour of the canals in a boat with a guide and through the narrow streets as the sun sets and there you find the sweetest Belgian chocolate breasts in the brightly lit candy shop, washed down with the coolest strongest monk brewed beer, and Dad discovered Ameretto and then we went home.
Would you like to be greeted by a stork on the way up to your room at the Hotel Cordoanier?
Ask him nicely and he will direct you - in any language you choose - to the best restaurant round the corner in the main square.
Stay at "Number 11" B&B.
Stay at the bijou and beautiful De Tuilerieen hotel on Den Djiver Canal. We have stayed there twice now for the impeccable service, gorgeous, individually decorated rooms and the historic champagne breakfast buffet.
Sipping champagne in the black and white chequered breakfast room whilst horse drawn carriages clip clop by on the cobbles outside, and the day to day grind of London seems a long way away.
The hotels in Bruge become fully booked very early on so you need to book accomodation far in advance if you want to stay in a decent hotel.
Hotel Karos lies just outside the main square of Bruges. It's not luxurious, or particularly quiet but is fantastic to potter round and look at all the eclectic decor. A pram full of china doll's heads, a miniature shrine next to the staircase, and most amusing of all the stuffed rhinoceros in reception.
An old Belgian runs the bar 24 hrs and is great to chat to if you can manage not to stare at his wig which is always half falling off his head. Rooms are basic but large and the breakfast is great.
All in all an experience and one for those with a sense of humor and a delight for the absurd.
We camped in Bruges in a lovely little campsite near the swimming baths, we quickly set up tent and popped to the local shop and stocked up with our favorite Belgian beers.
The site had bikes for the campers use so we cycled the short distance into the centre, with lovely sunshine the morning ride in our t-shirts and shorts was easy with cycle lanes all the way and no hills, the bikes only had seven gears and we only need three of those!
We found ourselves in the beautiful town square and we soon tucking into moules and frites and rabbit in blonde beir. Washing down the great food with more of the local Brugge beir seemed like a good idea but as the sun disappeared and the clouds darkened that 4th and 5th beir seemed not the best idea.
The rain came down and we made a dash across the square to our bikes, ours being the only ones locked up as all the locals don't bother! The rain was getting heavier so we decided to have another beir and see if the rain stopped ... It didn't! We cycled back to our campsite soaked to the skin, bedraggled and decidedly wobbly.
Tip 1. don't be English and only go out in T-shirt and shorts, take a packamac!
Tip 2. Belgian Beir starts and 5% alcohol and only goes upwards, I tried an 11% dark beir that day ... not advisable when riding bikes.
Tip 3. Try the rabbit its fabulous and a real local recipe.
Hotel Adornes is an excellent place to stay with canal views from several of the rooms and really friendly staff.
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