Bruges’ central mediaeval square is ringed by guild houses and watched over by the 83-metre Belfort tower whose bells have marked the hour since the 13th century. Everything in the city connects back to here, and it is a ten-minute walk from the hostel.

A 12th-century chapel in the Burg square, said to hold a relic of Christ’s blood and drawing pilgrims and visitors for centuries. One of the most quietly extraordinary small buildings in Europe and free to enter. Most people walk straight past the door.

The most photographed canal corner in Bruges, where the Dijver meets the Rozenhoedkaai quay and the city suddenly looks exactly like every painting of it ever made. Come at dusk when the crowds thin and the water goes still.

Behind the houses that line the south side of the Begijnhof garden, a narrow passage leads down to the water’s edge and a view back up to the Pont du Béguinage bridge that almost no visitor ever finds. One of the best photographs in Bruges and entirely free. Ask at reception for directions.

Walk out of the hostel, through the Kruispoort gate, and follow the old city ramparts north. Four historic windmills line the grassy banks above the canal, including Sint-Janshuismolen, the only one still in its original position and open as a working museum in summer. Free to walk, extraordinary to look at, and five minutes from your front door.

The best thirty minutes you will spend in Bruges. Boats depart regularly from five jetties in the city centre, gliding beneath mediaeval bridges and past guild houses and weeping willows that most people never properly see from street level. Go in the morning before the tour groups arrive.

For a first morning in the city, the open-top bus tours departing from the Markt are a genuinely smart way to get your bearings across the full spread of Bruges before you start exploring on foot. Fifteen minutes on foot from the hostel down Langestraat.

366 steps, the city’s famous carillon bells ringing past you on the way up, and a full panorama of the canal ring, windmills, and flat Belgian countryside waiting at the top. Timed entry keeps the crowds manageable, so booking ahead at weekends is worth doing.

Bruges sits at the centre of a network of flat, well-signposted cycling routes that follow the canals out into the Flemish countryside. The route to the village of Damme along the tree-lined canal is a classic half-day trip, and bikes are available to hire directly from the hostel.

A medieval lock, a lake full of swans, weeping willows touching the water, and almost no one around once you get past the main drag. This is the Bruges that exists beyond the tourist circuit, and it is fifteen minutes on foot from the hostel.

Five minutes from the hostel and genuinely beautiful, sculpted flowerbeds, a bandstand, a duck pond, and the kind of unhurried park atmosphere that makes you realise Bruges is a city people actually live in, not just visit.

Four preserved windmills standing along the old city ramparts at the northeast edge of the canal ring, two of them still working. The views from the ramparts stretch across a stretch of the city that most visitors never reach, and the whole walk along the walls costs nothing.

Jan van Eyck. Hans Memling. Some of the finest Flemish Primitive paintings in the world, hung in a museum small enough to actually do properly in two hours. Arguably the best art collection in Belgium outside Brussels, and almost always quieter than it deserves to be.

A walled 13th-century religious community, now home to Benedictine nuns, whose white-painted houses ring a courtyard of poplar trees that shifts completely between seasons. A UNESCO World Heritage Site that most visitors rush through. Slow down, it earns it.

An unmarked alley off the Breidelstraat leads to one of the most talked-about bars in Belgium. The house tripel comes in at 11.5% and is poured slowly at wooden tables in a centuries-old interior. Ask at the hostel reception if you cannot find the entrance, because you will not find it otherwise.

Over 300 Belgian labels, a genuine passion for every one of them, and the kind of knowledgeable crowd that makes choosing your next round feel like a proper event. You will go in for one beer. You will not leave after one beer.

Open since 1515 and showing no signs of changing. Low ceilings, wooden benches, pétanque in the garden in summer, and a refreshing absence of any interest in playing to the tourist trade. One of the oldest cafés in Europe and still one of the best reasons to come to Bruges.

Walk this stretch of canal in both directions and at different times of day. Mediaeval bridges, weeping willows, and water that catches the light in a way that has been pulling painters here for six centuries. This is the part of Bruges that justifies every photograph you have ever seen of it.