Bruges Christmas Market

Having travelled to Belgium frequently as a child, I have fond memories of waffles and chocolate goodies. In recent times it has also included beer as Belgium has an amazing beer culture that was a mystery to me back then! Before the second world war, Bruges city centre was home to at least 30 working breweries. At that time beer supplies were delivered by horse and cart to people’s homes and tourists had not yet discovered the city’s old masters, museums and winding canals.

Nowadays enough beer to fill 12,000 bottles an hour flows in a pipeline under the cobbled streets from the De Halve Maan brewery to an off-site bottling plant. The Bottle Shop, just off the market square, is an interesting place to stock up on boozy gifts. It stocks more than 600 different beers and most beers have their own distinctive glasses. If you really are a beer fan, choose to return in February for the annual beer festival. The Bruges Beer Festival features more than 280 beers from more than 70 breweries and features visiting top chefs cooking cuisine with beer. It’s held in a large heated tent on the Grote Markt. This is also one of the few, if not only, festivals in the world where all seven Belgian & Dutch Trappist beers are available.

We chose to travel by Eurostar for this trip as it was something my husband hadn’t done before. It meant an early start to get into London St Pancras as with most weekend breaks, you want to make the most of a short time away. Also, on busy services, the train can be a mile long! That’s a long way to walk with luggage, so it always pays to get there early and not be stressed about finding your carriage. Sadly it was a touch too early to stop off at Europe's longest Champagne bar! Our journey was comfortable and was a direct service through to Brussels. Our ticket was to ABS which means ‘any Belgian station’ and allows you to connect at your leisure to the local train which takes around an hour. On arrival we walked to our hotel which was close to ‘Minnewater’ – the Lake of Love. This is a quiet area of the city, but still only a 10 minute stroll to the central Grote Markt Square.

This is also the part of the city that stables the horses that ply the cobbled streets by day and night giving city tours, so there’s very little road traffic, but you will hear the clip clop of the hooves and the trundle of the carriages going past until early evening. If you follow the steady stream of people from here, you’re bound to reach the Grote Markt which is overlooked by the medieval bell tower. If you’re reasonably fit and the weather is in your favour, it’s 366 steps to the top and gives great views of this pretty city. The timing was perfect for us to be up there when the bells were ringing which was a memorable experience. This is not recommended for people who are claustrophobic as the stairs are very narrow and winding! It’s also been made famous in recent years by the film ‘In Bruges’.

So, what is there to buy at the Christmas market? As with most traditional markets, it’s lots of handmade goods supplemented by a wonderful array of festive food and drink. In addition, you can buy almost anything made of chocolate (and I do mean anything!) I have to say that this was a trip where we wandered around a lot, did lots of window shopping and festive eating and drinking with no real plan to our days. We admired the buildings, climbed the tower, watched the skaters and just soaked up the festive atmosphere.