One of the prettiest little cities in Belgium, Bruges is a gift to visit on its own and the holiday celebrations make it an even more lovely destination for a visit.
Bruges has two official Christmas Markets that run from Nov 24, 2023 to Jan 7, 2024, plus a host of other winter activities to keep visitors and locals entertained alike during the cold winter days. The collective name for all of these events is known as “Winter Glow”- as in those warm yellow toned lights that make the season feel so cozy and festive- which is such a sweet way to experience the cold winter nights.
The largest and most touristic of the two markets is located in the main square, Grote Markt. The vendors are surrounded by gorgeous buildings and towered over by the city’s famous Belfry. Though we were pretty over steep steps by this point of the trip and chose not to make the climb up, I can imagine that there would be a pretty spectacular view from the top of the tower. We were even lucky enough to hear a Carillon concert played out of the Belfry, though it was harder than expected to parse out the specific tune.
This market sells traditional Christmas market goods- at Christmas Market prices! We ended up with an incredibly expensive nougat haul. A delicious, but painful traveling error that would haunt us for the rest of our trip. A bit chagrined, we didn’t spend too much time in this particular market, but they did seem to have a good spread of festive food and knickknacks.
We stumbled across the second, smaller market in Simon Stevinplein mostly by accident and ended up enjoying it quite a bit more.
From what I could tell, it seemed to attract more locals than tourists (sorry to crash the party, guys!) and had more of an emphasis on community rather than shopping. The vendor stalls were selling handmade and local goods and surrounded a large open area where people were gathering to drink and play games.
We collected a mug of glühwein here and joined a circle of people playing Stump- a drinking game centered around hammering nails into a tree stump with one hit. Nagelen, in Belgium! Now, it doesn’t seem to be the best idea to hand someone a hammer and a glass of wine but everyone had a good time and miraculously no one got hurt.
The Bruges holiday mug ended up being one of my favorite designs of any mug throughout the whole trip- frosted glass with swans pulling Santa’s sleigh. You’d best believe that I was using some of my very limited luggage space to bring that back home with me! Luckily, it did survive the journey and it now has a place of honor at home.
I did find it interesting that both markets would play music over a loudspeaker- and not typical Christmas music. I had to wonder who was in charge of the playlist, but it was fun to be in the market when everyone starts singing along to a favorite song.
Aside from the holiday markets, visitors are encouraged to walk Bruges’ Light Experience Trail. For the past several years, the city has been collaborating with artists to put on a show featuring art pieces constructed with light. It can vary from year to year, but it’s a fun way to explore the city at night. I recommend bringing along a hot drink to help keep you warm on your journey- it was a total lifesaver on our walk!
There is also an ice skating rink located on Minnewater where tickets can be purchased for only 7 Euros- one of the best deals I saw throughout Europe! We decided not to skate here, and instead refilled our GlĂĽhwein at the nearby bar to warm us up.
I really enjoyed my holiday visit to Brugge! The Christmas markets were lovely and while I did think that some of the pieces on the Light Experience Trail were better than others, I thought it was a really unique holiday experience and a good way to move their many visitors away from their more crowded markets.
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