“Winter Glow” – that’s what Bruges calls its Christmas festival. It evokes the warm welcome of Christmas in the face of the long, dark nights of deep winter, and the cold bite of the weather pushing in across the polders from the North Sea. It speaks of the soft, golden lights of the shops, pooling around the busy Bruges Christmas market stalls, the sparkling street illuminations and Christmas trees, floodlit spires pointing into a starry sky, log fires in the taverns and the cosseting boutique hotels…
Bruges does it all with taste. Pinch yourself because at times it can feel like walking into a nativity scene painted by a Flemish master.
Bruges square, Belgium Getty Images
The traditional Christmas markets this year take place right across the festive season, from Friday 25 November to Sunday 8 January 2023. They embrace, therefore, not just Christmas and New Year, but also the Feast of St Nicholas (Sinterklaas) on 6 December, when the man himself, dressed as the Bishop of Myra – the original Santa Claus – tours the streets and children are given presents. Stalls for the Christmas markets are set up right in the heart of this medieval pocket city, in two locations, a stone’s throw from one another. The one in the Markt (the main market square, beneath the towering city Belfry) is the general, “traditional” Christmas market, with gifts, decorations and winter clothing. The second, in the more intimate, tree-lined square called Simon Stevinplein, is devoted to local artisanal and craft products, including food, plus a merry-go-round for children. Among the stalls in both, you will find convivial pop-up bars – busy with locals, especially at weekends – selling mulled wine, tots of jenever gin and a range of ever-excellent Flemish beers.
In truth, though, the main thrust of the “Winter Glow” initiative is not so much the Christmas markets as a spectacular light show, as an added, alternative attraction away from the city centre. This “Light Experience Trail” was first introduced in 2019 and has become progressively more ambitious with each passing year (the pandemic notwithstanding). It has always taken place to the southwest of the city centre, in the area that you would pass through on your way to the railway station. This year it extends further north, to a quiet quarter of old almshouses and religious institutions nestled between the big open square called ’t Zand and the canal that loops eventually all around the old city.
