8 Flemish Hotels in Converted Merchant Houses

Antwerp and Bruges were both built on the same thing: merchants who got rich on cloth and trade between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries and put the money into houses. Bruges was the first, a port on a tidal channel that silted up in the fifteenth century and left the city preserved by its own decline. Antwerp took over, became the richest city in Europe for a stretch of the sixteenth century, and has kept rebuilding ever since.

The result is two cities full of merchant houses, and in both the best hotels are inside them rather than beside them.

The two cities, and how different they are

Bruges is the museum piece: a walled medieval centre of canals and gabled houses, almost entirely intact, and receiving enormous numbers of day visitors. Between ten and five in season the centre is dense. Before nine and after seven it empties and becomes extraordinary.

Antwerp is a working city of half a million with a container port, a diamond district, a fashion academy that produced a generation of designers, and Rubens. It has the restaurants, the shopping and the nightlife that Bruges does not.

They are an hour apart by train, which makes doing both straightforward, and most trips should.

The nine below are grouped by city.

Antwerp

The larger, livelier one. Fashion, food and Rubens.

Botanic Sanctuary Antwerp occupies a complex of five listed monasteries and abbey buildings dating back to the fourteenth century, restored over a decade, with a spa in the cellars and gardens between the wings. It is the most ambitious hotel conversion in Belgium.

August Antwerp sits in a converted building near the cathedral, designed throughout by a Belgian architect known for restraint, with a small room count and a courtyard. It is the most quietly considered hotel in the country.

Hotel Julien occupies two merchant houses on the Korte Nieuwstraat with a courtyard, a rooftop terrace and an interior that leans contemporary against the old bones.

De Witte Lelie sits in a seventeenth-century house on a quiet street with a handful of rooms, a garden and the feel of staying in a private home.

Hotel Franq occupies a former bank on the Leopold de Waelplaats in the museum quarter, with a good restaurant and rooms that are larger than the old-town conversions.

Bruges

The intact medieval centre, best before nine and after seven.

Hotel Dukes' Palace occupies a fifteenth-century palace once owned by the Dukes of Burgundy, with a Gothic hall, a garden and a position a minute from the Markt. It is the grandest building any hotel in Bruges holds.

Hotel Heritage sits in a nineteenth-century mansion near the Markt with a rooftop terrace, a small spa and interiors that are traditional rather than designed.

Relais Bourgondisch Cruyce occupies a run of connected canal houses on the Groenerei with rooms directly over the water, which in Bruges is the position everyone wants.

Hotel De Orangerie sits in a converted patrician house with a walled garden, a pool and a quieter position a few streets from the centre.

What we have left off

The bed and breakfasts across Bruges are excluded, and in a city of small historic houses they are a substantial and often lovely part of the accommodation. They are guest houses rather than hotels.

What to do

In Bruges, be out at seven in the morning. The Markt, the Burg and the canals with nobody in them is the entire reason to sleep there rather than day-tripping from Brussels.

Climb the Belfry, see the Groeningemuseum for the Flemish Primitives, and the Michelangelo Madonna in the Church of Our Lady, which is the only sculpture of his to leave Italy in his lifetime.

In Antwerp, the Rubens House, the Plantin-Moretus printing museum, which is a UNESCO site and one of the best small museums in Europe, and the MAS for the view over the port.

Shop the fashion district around Nationalestraat and the ModeMuseum. Antwerp's designers are the reason the city has the reputation it does.

Eat Flemish and drink properly. Belgian beer is a serious tradition and the cafés in both cities take it seriously.

Practical notes

Brussels airport is 45 minutes from Antwerp and an hour and a quarter from Bruges by train. Both cities are on direct lines from Brussels and from each other.

May, June and September are ideal. Bruges is at its most crowded from July to August and at Christmas, when the market fills the Markt. Winter otherwise is cold, quiet and atmospheric.

Both centres are compact and pedestrian. Do not drive into Bruges.

Questions people actually ask

Antwerp or Bruges?

Both, an hour apart. Bruges for the medieval centre, Antwerp for food, fashion and a working city.

Is Bruges too crowded?

Between ten and five in season, yes. Staying overnight is the answer and it transforms the place.

Is Antwerp worth two nights?

Yes. It has the restaurants, the shopping and two or three genuinely excellent museums.

How many nights?

Four. Two in each.

If you only book one

Search 4 and 5 star hotels in Antwerp and Bruges, Belgium