Traveling Belgium with Kids: Bruges

Our second day in Belgium (and first full day) was spent in the lovely town of Bruges. You can read about our first evening at Villers Abbey here and our last day in Brussels here.

Bruges was a great town for walking around. We had our double stroller for the kids and loved seeing all the old architecture. 

One of the very first things we did was grab a Belgian waffle. There are actually two types of Belgian waffles - Brussels waffles (which are what we would normally think of as "Belgian" waffles in the United States) and Liege waffles. Liege waffles (which is what we got) are denser and richer. We got ours with Nutella and it was a big hit with everyone. 

We loved seeing the city with our good friend, Quentin.

So amazing.

The batter before it's in the waffle iron (on the left).

Next up on our itinerary was to go see the Belfry Tower. This bell tower dates back to the Middle Ages and rings every 15 minutes. While there is a fee that you can pay to climb to the top, we just enjoyed looking up at the bell tower and listening to the bells.

From there, we enjoyed walking around the city. We saw the canals (Bruges is sometimes referred to as the "Venice of the North"), which were gorgeous! We had wanted to do a boat tour, but with it being December, there was only one or two boats that seemed to be running and the line was a bit too long for us. We still loved seeing the canals though and enjoyed our walk through the city. 

I loved all the buildings here! Some of the stores had the year it was built on it and we saw dates from at least as early as the 1600's. It was all very walkable and having a stroller was no problem at all! London was also able to get out and walk a bit too so that was also really nice.

City Hall

We visited between Christmas and New Years so it was neat seeing the town all decorated for the holidays.

While the girls napped in their stroller, we visited Michelangelo's Madonna and Child at the Church of Our Lady. There was a small fee to see it (a few euros), but it was well worth it! The sculpture was completed early 1500's and is the only Michelangelo sculpture that left Italy during his lifetime. It was removed twice from Belgium - once during the French Revolutions and once during World War II (part of the plot in the movie, Monument Men). 

We ended our day with getting some famous Belgian chocolate from a local Bruges merchant. It was fantastic and a great way to finish our visit to this wonderful city!

For more information, please visit:

https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/belgium/bruges

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruges

http://www.belgianwaffle.org/belgian-waffle/