Bruges With Kids: Small Enough to Learn in a Day

Bruges is a medieval town the size of a large park, with canals instead of roads and a bell tower you can see from everywhere. A seven year old can learn the way back to the hotel in a day, and that is worth more to a family than any museum.

Base here, not Brussels. Brussels is the airport and a day trip. Bruges is where you sleep, walk, eat waffles and let the kids run the squares while you finish a beer at a cafe table.

The canal boat is the first thing to do. Thirty minutes, leaves from five docks, and the guide points out the swans, the oldest bridge and the house with the dog in the window. The kids will want to go twice. Go twice, it is cheap.

The Belfry is three hundred and sixty six steps up a narrow spiral stair, and the bells ring while you are inside. Kids over six manage it with a rest at each landing. The view is the whole town and the North Sea on a clear day.

The chocolate question

There are more chocolate shops in Bruges than there are streets. Skip the ones on the main square and go into any small one with a queue of locals. The Chocolate Line and Dumon are the two I send families to. Buy a mixed box, let each child pick three, and eat them on the canal wall.

Frites come in a paper cone with mayonnaise from the two stands under the Belfry, and they are dinner more nights than I would admit to a pediatrician. A frietkot at nine at night with the tower lit up above you is the Bruges memory that sticks.

Two or three nights. Ghent is half an hour by train and is Bruges with fewer tourists and a castle with real armor to try on.

Planning Belgium with kids? Start with the full Belgium family travel guide, or send me the ages and the dates and I will come back with what is really available.