Bruges in 4 days

The 13th-century tower lost its wooden spire in 1741; 366 steps lead past the old treasury room to the carillon's 47 bells.

Two chapels stacked in one building on the Burg, the lower one being St Basil's, a bare Romanesque chapel from the 12th century.

A half-hour loop in open boats, under bridges low enough to duck, past the old tanners' gardens, St John's Hospital, the beguinage and the Spiegelrei.

The city's Flemish Primitives: Jan van Eyck's Madonna with Canon van der Paele of 1436, Memling's Moreel Triptych, Gerard David and Hieronymus Bosch.

Its 115-metre brick tower is among the tallest in the world, and inside is Michelangelo's marble Madonna and Child, bought by Bruges merchants.

Founded around 1188, one of Europe's oldest surviving hospitals, with timber-roofed wards, a chapel, a 17th-century pharmacy and paintings by Memling.

Founded in 1245, white houses around a lawn of poplars and spring daffodils; beguines lived here until 1927, and Benedictine nuns still occupy it.

Once Bruges's inner harbour, where barges unloaded wool and cloth, this long lake keeps the 1398 Powder Tower and a 16th-century lock-keeper's house.