New Bruges Travel Guide Published
Latest Bruges and Ghent Guidebook in Rough Guides Directions Series
The pocket-sized Rough Guide Directions series has a new edition of their Bruges and Ghent travel guide, covering Bruges hotels, restaurants, and visitor attractions.
The new edition of the Bruges travel guide in the Rough Guides Directions series covers Bruges hotels, restaurants, sights, bars, clubs, and shopping, and throws in the city of Ghent for good measure. Bruges is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and has been one of the most popular vacation destinations for Europeans since the late 19th century.
This 2nd edition of the Bruges travel guide, published May 2008, runs to almost 200 pages. Unlike the standard-sized Rough Guides, some of which are as big as the average house brick, the Directions series are designed to slip into your pocket or handbag. They're also more attractive than the main Rough Guides, on glossy paper and with color photographs through the book, rather than just in a few special sections.
The Bruges guide begins with potted summaries of the best of Bruges and Ghent, such as:
- The Big 6 Sights
- Best Churches
- Best Museums
- Canalside Hotels
- Historic Hotels
- Belgian Beer
There then follows the main part of the book, almost 100 pages on Places of Interest, divided into areas, each area having its own listings for shops, cafés, restaurants, and bars. The write-ups are detailed and lively. The author Phil Lee is not afraid to criticise where it's warranted, or point out which of Bruges' medieval-looking buildings were in fact built in the 19th or 20th century, but in medieval style. At the same time, though, he's not one of those guidebook writers who seem to take delight in sneering at popular places. He obviously likes Bruges and Ghent, and isn't afraid to say that either: "The gentle canals and maze-like cobbled streets of eastern Bruges are extraordinarily pretty, and it's here that the city reveals its depth of character."
Bruges or Ghent?
Comparing the two, the author says that "Ghent remains a quintessentially Flemish city with a tourist industry – rather than the other way round – and if you find the tourists and tweeness of Bruges a tad overpowering, this is the place to decamp, just twenty minutes away by train."
Bruges and Ghent Accommodation Options
There are ten pages on Ghent and Bruges hotels listed at the back of the book, with four of those pages given over to two double-page maps, showing exactly where each hotel is located. Gone are the days when Rough Guides meant sleeping, if not literally rough then in somewhere definitely at the budget end of the hotel price range. Not today, though. While there are four hostels listed if you want somewhere cheap to stay in Bruges, and several bed and breakfasts, there are also a number of four-star hotels reviewed, though mostly it's one-, two-, and three-star accommodation options.
All the entries for attractions, shops, restaurants and so on have all the basic information you need: address, phone, website, with opening hours and prices where that applies. The author is a friendly and knowledgeable guide, and as an inexpensive but thorough travel guide to Bruges and Ghent, this latest in the Rough Guides Directions series would be hard to beat.
Bruges Travel Guide: Practical Information
The Rough Guide Directions: Bruges and Ghent travel guide costs $11.99 in the USA, $13.99 in Canada, and £6.99 in the UK. Available in bookshops, from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other websites. More information from the Rough Guides website.
