Church of Our Lady, Bruges

Church of Our Lady, Bruges tickets: which one to buy

Entry to the nave of the Church of Our Lady is free, and the chancel with the tombs and the museum collection is ticketed. Buy the ticket; the free part gets you a view of the Michelangelo from a distance behind glass, while the paid part gets you the ducal tombs, the excavated painted graves and the Gruuthuse oratory. The Bruges museum pass covers it along with the Groeninge gallery next door and the town hall, and pays for itself quickly.

Walking tours of the city include the church exterior and the tower, which at 115 metres is the tallest thing in Bruges and a landmark from every canal. Boat tours pass beneath the windows. The church is five minutes from the main square and next to the old hospital, which holds Memling's paintings and is the other essential ticket in town. Nothing needs advance booking outside high summer.

Visiting Church of Our Lady, Bruges: what to see

The church was built mainly in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in brick rather than stone, and its tower is among the tallest brick church towers in the world. The flying buttresses on the outside date from the 1270s and 1280s and are early for the region. Inside, the nave is Gothic with a black and white tiled floor, while the aisles and chancel carry heavy baroque additions. The great draw is a marble Madonna and Child by Michelangelo, bought by a Bruges cloth merchant and shipped north in 1504, the only work by the sculptor to leave Italy in his lifetime;

it was taken twice in wartime, by French revolutionary troops and by the Germans in 1944, and recovered both times. Behind the high altar lie the gilded bronze tombs of Charles the Bold, last Valois duke of Burgundy, and of his daughter Mary, whose early death after a riding accident ended Burgundian independence. Painted tombs found under the chancel floor during excavation are displayed where they were found, under glass.

Church of Our Lady, Bruges opening hours and the best time to go

Bruges takes enormous numbers of day visitors and the difference between nine in the morning and midday is the difference between an empty church and a queue. Come early, or stay overnight and use the evening, when the coaches have gone and the canals are lit. The church closes on Sunday mornings for services and keeps shorter winter hours. Spring and autumn are pleasant; winter is cold and damp but the Christmas market and the ice rink make up for it.

The procession of the Holy Blood in May, when a relic is carried through the city in a costumed pageant, fills the streets and is a UNESCO-listed tradition. Everything in Bruges is within fifteen minutes on foot. Allow forty-five minutes for the church with the chancel, and keep the Memling museum for the same morning. The tower is not open to visitors, so the view over Bruges comes from the belfry on the market square instead.