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Belgium
Just spent a lovely weekend in Bruges, you just must take make the canal boat trip. All the restuarants we ate in were great but I would especially recommend the Maximillian which faces towards the Lake of Love.
The horse drawn carriage ride sounds a bit tacky but its great fun, about €35 for a 30-minute ride, the Bruges people are very forward about asking for tips! Look for special offers in the museums.
We stayed at the Boat hotel de Barge, great quirky place, the bedrooms were surprisingly spacious, and very clean and airy with views over the canal. Bird watchers delight, with Barnacle Geese tapping on the windows as you breakfast, from the canal they can see what you are eating! Great fun and good value all round.
I was most impressed by the hotel booking information provided by the online booking agent and easy navigation of the whole site. We booked with Just one hotel who have a website dedicated to Bruges.
www.brugeshotels.co.uk
0141 270 2170
Google map: tinyurl.com/2utqxj8
This small B&B is only a few minutes’ walk from the heart of UNESCO World Heritage town of Bruges. It has three simple but stylishly decorated rooms with ensuite bathrooms on the second floor of a character town house complete with mosaic flooring. The host is friendly and helpful with numerous insider tips on where to eat and drink, and the breakfast - served in the separate breakfast room - is everything you would expect from a continental breakfast and more! Clean crisp bed linen, fresh pastries at breakfast, a warm host and cosy rooms - it’s everything you’d want from a city B&B so we keep going back to romantic Bruges to stay at this lovely place. Prices very reasonable too from £55 (single) - £105 (family room) - recommended for anyone looking for bags of chocolate box charm in Belgium’s self proclaimed ‘chocolate city’!
Cars can be left at the conveniently located long-term car park served by frequent free buses into the town centre, or if you’re brave enough just get the Eurostar into Bruges.
BED AND BREAKFAST
LUT EN BRUNO SETOLA
SINT-WALBURGASTRAAT 12
8000 BRUGGE
BELGIUM
TEL. +32 50 33 49 77
FAX +32 50 33 25 51
E-MAIL SETOLA@BEDANDBREAKFAST-BRUGES.COM
www.bedandbreakfast-bruges.com/index.html
Google map: tinyurl.com/y9ggxup
Last month I visited Bruges. A rather small yet romantic city in the Flemish region of Belgium. While the restaurant we visited turned out to be a disappointment (microwaved food, rude people, unreasonable prices) I really enjoyed the place where we stayed.
In Bruges we stayed in a small cosy hotel called Prinsenhof, it’s actually an example of old 13th century Flemish housing. It had a clean, comfy luxurious room, a welcoming atmosphere, and the breakfast (while not really cheap) proved to be unforgettable!
Make sure you park your car in the city as the hotel charges for parking.
Ontvangersstraat 9, 8000 Bruges, Belgium
www.prinsenhof.co.uk
0032 50 342 690
Google map: tinyurl.com/yazxdlj
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.
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.
Hotel Adornes is an excellent place to stay with canal views from several of the rooms and really friendly staff.
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