Brussels to Belgian chocolate towns: Private day trip

Bruges is the most perfectly preserved medieval city in northern Europe — mirror-still canals, Gothic spires, and Flemish Primitive masterpieces.

What to see

• The Markt and Burg squares — the civic heart of medieval Bruges
• The Groeninge Museum holds the finest collection of Flemish Primitive painting outside a national museum — Jan van Eyck's Madonna with Canon van der Paele and Hans Memling's portraits are the essential works

What to do

• The canal network: boat tours from the Rozenhoedkaai give the classic low-water perspective of the medieval city

What to eat

• Chocolate from The Chocolate Line or Dumon on the Markt — both among the finest praliniers in Belgium

Ghent delivers three Gothic towers above a Romanesque quayside, the most important painting in Northern European art and a street food culture built around sweets that exist nowhere else on earth.

What to see

• The Sint-Baafskathedraal houses the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb — the Van Eyck altarpiece of 1432 considered the most important painting in Northern European art
• The medieval towers of Sint-Niklaaskerk, the Belfort and Sint-Baafskathedraal rise above the Graslei and Korenlei
• The Gravensteen — a 12th-century moated castle of the Counts of Flanders rising implausibly from the centre of a living city

What to eat

• Gentse waterzooi — a Ghent-specific cream and vegetable stew made with chicken or fish, the city's signature dish since the Middle Ages