Boutique Hotels in Belgium

Belgium covers an area smaller than Maryland, yet the country holds three of Europe's most architecturally intact medieval cities alongside the EU administrative capital. The curatorial output across the centuries runs disproportionately to the country's size: Flemish Primitive painting through Memling and Van Eyck; the cocoa trade that built the modern Belgian chocolate tradition; the Trappist brewing monasteries that produced Westvleteren, Chimay and Orval; the lace-making and tapestry traditions that survive intact in dedicated quarters of each major Flemish city.

Bruges is the country's lace city in the north — the late-medieval Hanseatic trading port that escaped the industrial nineteenth century almost untouched, where the canal network, the cobbled lanes and the merchant houses survive at a preservation level few European cities approach. Memling's Saint Ursula Shrine and the panels of the Saint John's Hospital sit a short walk from the Markt; the Groeningemuseum's collection holds Van Eyck, Bosch and the wider Flemish Primitive tradition; the Belfort tower carries the chimes that still mark Bruges's hours; the Begijnhof's beguinage retains its thirteenth-century quietness inside the city walls. The Duvelorium and the chocolate houses on Wollestraat handle the contemporary craft tradition. The Pand Hotel anchors an 18th-century carriage house two minutes from the Markt; Hotel Heritage sits in a Flemish townhouse a short walk from the Burg.