Already famous for its chocolate-box good looks – and made more so by the 2008 hit film In Bruges – Belgium’s West Flanders capital is absurdly pretty. Cobbled streets? Check. Open, pedestrianised squares framed by handsome medieval buildings? Check. Historic gabled houses, Gothic and Baroque churches and stone bridges crossing glassy canals? Check, check, check. Heck, even the McDonald’s is charming.
This is a city, too, that was almost made for winter; when we wheel our cases from the train station into the centre of Bruges one crisp December evening, it is eerily beautiful, cosy lights appearing gradually through the mist as if beckoning us onward. They know how to do Christmas decorations, too – there are trees, wreaths, ribbons and twinkling fairy lights everywhere you look, but all of it as tasteful-looking as Bruges itself. “Gaudy” simply isn’t in their vocabulary.
