Our second walking tour brings us to the south part of town, starting out from the Markt, the central market square. One block north we find a busy outdoor dining terrace, Geernaartstraat, popular with locals, as much as with visitors, surrounded by old Flemish gabled buildings. It shows that when you get 100 feet away from the market square, you dive right into the local culture, also open in the morning when it's much less busy.
Watch video of this walking tour on YouTube here.
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Across the street is another popular corner that used to be an egg market, but now it's a wide sidewalk with restaurant tables. Eiermarkt is a lively neighborhood that extends along for several blocks. There are waffle shops, chocolate and several kinds of gelaterias. Eat while standing up or have a seat and watch the bicycles buzzing by these colorful buildings. Now we're going to walk from here along the two main shopping streets, Geldmunstraat and Steenstraat.
This name Geldmunstraat, translates to Money Mint Street, hinting at its past as a center for financial activities. In the morning it's a popular route used by kids to bicycle to school, pedaling along side by side. Bicycling can be a very sociable activity, carrying on a conversation as you glide along.
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One of the best-known shops on the street is the Boterehuis, in business since 1933. It's a small but packed quality shop featuring hundreds of cheeses from small local farmers and from all over the world, along with stone-baked farmers bread and the very best of Spanish hams, a great place to purchase the fixings for a picnic or a meal back in your room.
The shopfronts along this street and throughout Bruges are so attractive, they're like works of art in themselves. Even when the stores are closed, it's enjoyable to take a stroll along the streets and observe the building architectures, each one different than the next, and the artistic designs of the shop window displays. There are several small supermarkets in the center with a good choice of ready to eat meals, sandwiches and salads, all kinds of beverages. You can dine inexpensively in Bruges if you choose.
In a few blocks the same street changes names to Noordzandstraat, with many more shops down here, including a Jack Wolfskin, selling fine outdoor clothing.
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Turn around and go back to Sint-Amandsstraat, a side lane with more shops and restaurants that leads in three blocks back to the market square. While the main streets are quite enjoyable with their old buildings and modern shops, the side streets also have a lot of appeal, so be sure to get off the main drag and go down these little streets, which are a little off the beaten track that you could easily miss, but are worth exploring.
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Upon reaching the Markt from Sint-Amandsstraat, walk right for 30 meters to enter the other main shopping street, Steenstraat, lined with a great variety of items for sale in dozens of shops, and with restaurants, and a few little hotels along the way. Even if you are not going to buy something, you would love some window shopping along this street. The architecture and displays are lovely to see.
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Our walk leads us to Simon Stevinplein, a renowned Flemish mathematician, now surrounded by wonderful outdoor cafes. As you walk along it, you'll see other streets branching off forming a little bit of a maze that's really quite fun to walk in. You're not going to get lost. Kemelstraat is another great side lane to discover because here you will see a famous beer pub with 300 different kinds of beer, including five of them on tap.
We're now going to explore the southernmost part of Bruges. However, there are three major museums and two large churches in this section that are fully described in our webpage for museums and churches. Please see that other webpage for details. Here we merely walk past Groeninge and Gruuthuse Museums, St John’s Hospital, the Cathedral and Church of Our Lady.
Cross over the canal just south of Church of Our Lady to Katelijnestraat, which leads into a charming neighborhood with many shops, restaurants, fries, gelatto, little plazas, a brewery tour, the Beguinage, and Minnewater, the Lake of Love.
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Katelijnestraat is a wide and busy street extending about 600 meters, where it seems like everybody is out here to stand up on the cobbled paving and eat something -- waffles, ice cream, chocolate, beer, burgers and fries, the perfect Belgian combination. You stand and eat because they don't have public benches and many eateries are only for takeaway.
Mmm. Belgian chocolates. Perhaps this country is most famous for those delicious stuffed pralines, which makes a good energy snack and a nice gift to bring home. Horse carriages seem to have the right of way, so be careful and give them space to get by. It's a pedestrian street, but bicycles are allowed everywhere.
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Look for the narrow entrance to Stoofstraat, the narrowest street in all of Bruges, only 31 inches wide at its narrowest point, about 80 centimeters. It used to be part of the red light district with a bathhouse where wealthy men came to bathe and enjoy some company. Perhaps the narrow width offered some privacy for those activities.
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This brings you to Walplein and Walstraat, another one of those charming cobbled lanes lined with shops and restaurants, with more horse carriages going by, part of a lovely neighborhood with other attractive streets. Walplein is a delightful, outdoor tree-shaded plaza with tables for the nearby restaurants, and benches for the public.
De Halve Maan Brewery is on Walplein, with an outdoor beer garden featuring their own brews. It's a family-friendly place where you can have a beer along with a light meal. You can also step inside and do a tour of the brewery. The guided visit begins in the brew house where they brew all the beer. The big kettles are filled with hot water, to which they add malt. The liquid is then pumped into other kettles for further processing. Their beer is then sent through an underground pipeline to the bottling plant three kilometers away. There are 220 steps on the route through the brewery, sometimes quite steep, with the reward of a grand view of the old town from the open air rooftop.
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De Halve Maan is a family business with a tradition stretching back through six generations to 1856 when it was founded, continually adapting to changing consumer demands, developing many different flavors of beer. The brewery has grown into one of the most popular attractions in Bruges, with about 100,000 visitors every year. You pay an admission fee and that includes a glass of beer at the end.
Walk from the brewery down Walplein, then right on Wijngaardstraat where you will see the Horse Head Drinking Fountain, providing refreshment for horses pulling those tourist carriages.
Then cross over Begijnhofbrug and walk through the open gateway where you step into another world. This is the Begijnhof, which had been a residence for single ladies — people who were religiously devout but did not take the eternal vows of a nun, and lived a free and independent life in these tranquil surroundings, a peaceful green oasis surrounded by about 30 white houses dating from the 16th through the 18th centuries, although a community was first established here in the 13th century. Today it's occupied by some single ladies from Bruges and nuns of the Benedictine Order, a tradition that's found throughout Belgium and the Netherlands.
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The Begijnhof is included on the UNESCO's World Heritage list. At the north end stands the Church of Saint Elizabeth, founded in 1245 and rebuilt in 1605 with an interior in the Baroque style. For seclusion from the bustle of the world, it would be difficult to find a spot to surpass this with an expanse of smooth green turf, lofty elms, and entourage of whitewashed houses.
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After leaving the Begijnhof, you come upon the classic Bruges postcard card scene with swans gliding beneath the willow trees. Their natural diet of water plants is supplemented by the caretakers who treat them to mixed greens, lettuce, spinach or Belgian endives. The government takes good care of their flock of 100 swans.
The canal ends at the Lock House that was part of the hydraulic engineering of the lake. Tour boats reach the end of their route here, turning around to go back to town.
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Beyond that lock is Minnewater Park and lake, more affectionately known as the Lake of Love. The lush atmosphere makes this place the ultimate romantic hotspot with mysterious trees, an abundance of greenery and medieval ruins, and that tall gunpowder tower that owes its name to the gunpowder once stored there.
The lake was created as a reservoir back in the 13th century to regulate the water level of the river, in that way, prevent the city from getting flooded.
Have a stroll through the Lake of Love Park, with beautiful cobblestone pathways and bicycle paths. This idyllic park features a picturesque lake surrounded by lush greenery, swans gracefully gliding on the water, and charming footbridges that create a fairytale-like ambiance. In the old days, the park was a vast grassy plain used as a bleach field until the beginning of the 20th century.
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Women used to spread the washed linen there to be bleached by the sun and smell fresh and fragrant. There's a restaurant in the park in a traditional Flemish style brick building with the Gables, serving traditional Belgian cuisine, with seating indoors or outdoors with a view of the lake.
Google My Map route of this walking tour:
That completes our second walk. To continue on walk three, in the north end of town, click here.
