15 Bruges Hotels on the Sites of Palaces, Cathedrals and Counting Houses

The ducal palace where Philip the Good founded the Golden Fleece at his wedding, a hotel with a lost cathedral’s foundations in its basement, the merchant houses of Lucca and the Hansa, and the canal house from In Bruges.

Bruges stopped growing in the sixteenth century, so its hotels sit in the houses the dukes, bishops and foreign merchants left behind. This list has the Dukes’ Palace on the Prinsenhof, where Philip the Good married Isabella of Portugal in 1430, the Crowne Plaza, with the foundations of St Donatian’s Cathedral under its basement, the Lucca, in the quarter of the Lucchese merchants opposite the Medici bank’s old branch, and the Bourgondisch Cruyce, the canal house from the film In Bruges.

The list is grouped by character, not ranked. Each hotel’s name links to its own site, so you see the current rate and book direct.

Seats of power, from the ducal palace to the Burg

Hotel Dukes’ Palace · Prinsenhof / ‘t Zand

The Dukes’ Palace stands on the Prinsenhof, the Bruges residence of the Counts of Flanders and the Dukes of Burgundy. Philip the Good married Isabella of Portugal here in January 1430 and founded the Order of the Golden Fleece during the wedding festivities. The present neo-Gothic building is a late nineteenth-century rebuild on the palace site; it opened as a hotel in 2008, at first under Kempinski.

Crowne Plaza Brugge · Markt / Burg

The Crowne Plaza is built on the Burg over the site of St Donatian’s Cathedral, demolished in 1799 after the French suppression. Foundations of the medieval cathedral uncovered during construction are exposed in the hotel’s basement and can be visited. Jan van Eyck was buried in St Donatian’s in 1441; his grave was lost with the church.

Grand Hotel Casselbergh · Markt / Burg (Hoogstraat)

The Casselbergh occupies Hoogstraat 6 to 8, which includes the Huis de Zeven Torens, a medieval patrician house listed in the Flemish heritage inventory. Charles II of England is said to have lodged in the Zeven Torens house during his Bruges exile of 1656 to 1658. The hotel joins several historic mansions it dates to the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, and takes its name from the Casselbergh house.

Hotel de Castillion · Sint-Salvator / Steenstraat

The Castillion is a step-gabled corner house on the Heilige-Geeststraat, facing St Saviour’s Cathedral. It is named for Jean-Baptiste de Castillion, Bishop of Bruges from 1743 to 1753, whose residence the hotel says the house was. The lounge keeps an Art Deco interior from a twentieth-century refit.

Houses of the trading nations

Hotel Bryghia · Jan van Eyckplein / Spiegelrei

The Bryghia stands on the Oosterlingenplein, the square where the Hanseatic League’s Bruges Kontor built its Oosterlingenhuis in 1478. The hotel says its fifteenth-century building once belonged to the Hanseatic merchants. It is family-run, with some rooms looking onto the canal.

Hotel Lucca · Markt / Naaldenstraat

The Lucca sits on the Naaldenstraat, the quarter of the Lucchese merchant colony, whose Bruges residences are documented from the 1390s, across the street from the Hof Bladelin, which the Medici bank took over as its Bruges branch in 1466. The hotel says the house was built for a merchant from Lucca, and it serves breakfast in a fourteenth-century vaulted cellar.

Hotel Navarra · Markt / Sint-Jakobsstraat

The Navarra traces its house to a sixteenth-century trading residence of the Prince of Navarre, by the hotel’s account. The Flemish heritage inventory lists Sint-Jakobsstraat 41 as the Hotel des Courtiers, and its photo record shows the house trading as the Grand Hotel du Commerce before it became the Hotel Navarra. A hotel has operated at this address since the nineteenth century.

Hotel Adornes · Sint-Anna

The Adornes is a set of gabled houses on the Sint-Annarei canal, a few steps from the Jerusalem Chapel the Adornes family built in the fifteenth century. The Adornes were a Genoese merchant family; Anselm Adornes, born in 1424, served as burgomaster of Bruges and envoy to Scotland. The hotel says its three houses date from the sixteenth century, and it remains family-run.

Convents, a guild hall and a monastery

Hotel de Orangerie · Dijver / Rozenhoedkaai

The Orangerie is a fifteenth-century building on the Dijver canal opposite the Rozenhoedkaai, with a terrace at water level. The hotel says the house began as a convent before becoming a private residence. It is the sister property of the Hotel de Tuilerieen across the canal.

Hotel Die Swaene · Burg / Groenerei

Die Swaene’s lounge is the former council room of the Bruges Tailors’ Guild, dating from 1779. The hotel fronts the Steenhouwersdijk on the Groenerei canal, with the Pergola annex across the water, and has been family-owned since it opened in the 1980s, by its own account.

NH Brugge · ‘t Zand / Boeveriestraat

The NH Brugge is housed in a converted former monastery on the Boeveriestraat near ‘t Zand. The hotel dates the monastery buildings to the seventeenth century and keeps the cloister garden as its courtyard.

Patrician houses on the canals

Relais Bourgondisch Cruyce · Dijver / Rozenhoedkaai

The Bourgondisch Cruyce is the half-timbered canal house whose wooden rear facade is the view from the Rozenhoedkaai. It served as the hotel where Colin Farrell’s and Brendan Gleeson’s characters lodge in Martin McDonagh’s 2008 film In Bruges. The owner’s collection of Flemish paintings and antiques furnishes the rooms.

Hotel Heritage · Markt

The Heritage was built in 1869 as a private mansion a block from the Markt. The hotel says the house later served as a bank before its 1990s conversion, and the wellness area sits in a vaulted fourteenth-century cellar beneath the house. The Creytens family runs it.

The Pand Hotel · Dijver / Rozenhoedkaai

The Pand is an eighteenth-century carriage house on the Pandreitje, a lane off the Rozenhoedkaai. It has been family-run since it opened as a hotel, and the owner Chris Vanhaecke-Dewaele furnished it with antiques and Ralph Lauren fabrics. The neighbouring Pandreitje prison operated until 1991, when the site was redeveloped.

Hotel Jan Brito · Vismarkt / Groenerei

The Jan Brito is named for Jean Brito, a Breton-born printer active in Bruges in the 1470s who claimed in a colophon to have invented printing unaided. The hotel describes the house on the Freren Fonteinstraat as a listed sixteenth-century patrician mansion with a later rococo facade and a walled garden, a short walk from the Vismarkt and the Rozenhoedkaai.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are these hotels ranked?
No. The groups sort them by character, and the order within each group carries no meaning.

What made a hotel interesting enough for this list?
A story. Every entry was a house on the site of a palace or a cathedral, a residence of the medieval trading nations, a convent or guild hall turned hotel, or a patrician house on the canals with a documented past. Comfort alone did not qualify.

Why are there no prices?
Rates change daily and a priced list goes stale in a month. Each hotel’s name links to its own site, so you see the current rate and book direct.

Is Bruges worth a night, or is it a day trip?
A night. The day-trippers leave on the late-afternoon trains, and the canals and the Markt empty out by seven. The hotels on the Dijver and the Groenerei are at their best after dark, when the water is still and the bridges are lit.

Which hotel puts me closest to the day trips on this site?
Most day trips from Bruges run to Ghent, to the Flanders Fields battlefields around Ypres, to the coast at Ostend and De Haan, or to Damme by canal boat. The hotels around ‘t Zand and the Markt sit closest to the coach pickups and the station.