Bruges Layover Near the Markt
Part of the full Bruges Layover: The Belfry and Canals, BRU
On Bruges’ Markt: the Historium’s recreated 1435 city, a beer museum in the old post office, and a carriage rank at 70 euros the half hour. The bronze pair on the plinth in the middle of the square are a butcher and a weaver who led a massacre of the French garrison in 1302, and everything here is inside one square and the lanes running off it.
The Historium’s seven rooms of Bruges in 1435
One invented love story carries the whole thing, told across seven built rooms with film, sound and a lot of stagecraft, and the year it picks is the one when Jan van Eyck was working in the city. The basic route takes about an hour and costs roughly 14 euros; a virtual-reality flight over the medieval city and a climb up the building’s own tower are sold on top of it. Book the entry ahead if you are working to a train time, since the queue on the square can eat twenty minutes on a summer afternoon.
The building it occupies is a neo-Gothic addition to the square rather than a medieval one, put up alongside the provincial government building on the same side. It opens seven days a week, which is more than most things in Bruges can say.
The beer museum in the Markt’s old post office
Fourteen euros gets you the museum, 20 gets you the museum and three 15cl glasses at the end, and an iPad does the talking on the way round: brewing chemistry, the Trappist orders, the beer trade this city ran on. It is not long, and it is mostly reading and tasting rather than looking at objects, so it lives or dies on how much beer interests you.
What makes it worth naming here is the address. The whole thing sits on the upper floors of the restored post office on the corner of the Markt and Breidelstraat, so the bar at the end of the route has a first-floor view straight down the length of the square. Doors are open seven days a week, with last entry an hour before closing. Tickets can be bought ahead, though this is rarely the one that sells out.
If the belfry climb is also on the list, know that the tower sells it in timed slots with a capped number of people in each, and the 366 steps are a single narrow spiral, so anything larger than a daypack has to be sorted out before you join that queue.
The horse-carriage rank on the Markt
Seventy euros is the fare for half an hour, and it is the same seventy euros whichever carriage you get into: the city sets the price, not the drivers. A carriage takes five people, payment is cash to the driver with no cards and no receipts, and the queue works like a taxi rank, first come first served.
The route runs about thirty-five minutes in practice, because it pauses partway for the horse to drink. One scheduling wrinkle catches people out: on Wednesday mornings the food market covers the square, so the rank shifts across to Burg square and stays there until the stalls come down in the early afternoon.
Breydel and De Coninck in bronze in the middle of the square
Paul De Vigne cast the two figures in 1887, five and a half centuries after the night they are standing there for. Jan Breydel was a butcher and Pieter de Coninck a weaver, and on 18 May 1302 they led the Bruges militia through the city killing the French garrison in its beds. Two months later the Flemish militia beat a French army at Kortrijk and came home with several hundred gilded spurs stripped off dead knights, which is what that battle has been called ever since.
The plinth sits in open paving, so there is nothing to queue for and nothing to pay, and it is the one thing on the square that reads differently once you know what it is commemorating. South and east of here, the canals, the Burg and the museum quarter make up the rest of the full Bruges walk, which needs a good deal more than an hour.
No airport train leaves from the Markt
Everything to Brussels Airport-Zaventem goes from Bruges station, a twenty-minute walk south-west of the square or a few minutes on a city bus. The ride from there runs a little under an hour and a half without a change, and a single costs about 25 euros, which is more than the distance suggests because a 6.90-euro airport-station supplement is folded into every fare to or from that platform.
Add the walk out of the square to the front of that and the Markt sits roughly two hours from the departure hall before check-in has even started, which is the figure to work backwards from when deciding whether the belfry climb fits.
Frequently asked questions
What should I do during a layover near the Markt in Bruges?
Two indoor stops sit on the square itself: the Historium, an hour of built sets and film about Bruges in 1435, and the beer museum on the upper floors of the old post office. Outside, the bronze of Breydel and De Coninck stands in the middle of the square and the carriage rank works from the east side. Two to three hours covers all of it. The belfry climb is the one thing to skip if you are short, because it is sold in timed slots you may not get.
How much is a horse-drawn carriage ride in Bruges and where does it start?
Seventy euros per carriage for a half hour, a price the city sets rather than the drivers, with up to five people per carriage and cash only, no cards. The rank is on the Markt on six days of the week. On Wednesday mornings the food market takes the square and the carriages work from Burg square instead. It is first-come, first-served, like a taxi rank.
Is there a market on the Markt in Bruges?
On Wednesday mornings, yes: a food market runs across the square from eight until early afternoon, with cheese, meat, vegetables, bread and rotisserie chicken stalls. When something bigger takes over the square, the Christmas market in December most obviously, the Wednesday food stalls move to Burg square for the duration.
Is the Markt in Bruges worth it with kids?
The two stops that hold up best are the Historium, where the virtual-reality add-on is a flight over the medieval city rather than a walk through a museum, and the carriage ride, which takes five people and stops partway for the horse to drink. The belfry is the weak link: 366 steps up a single spiral, sold by timed slot, with no lift.