Brugge

Brugge developed as a major commercial and artistic centre in medieval Europe. Its historic centre preserves a network of canals, streets and public squares, with brick Gothic buildings and surviving city gates recording the shape of the earlier town. In the fifteenth century, patronage and trade supported the painters known as the Flemish Primitives, including Jan van Eyck and Hans Memling. The city continued to change after its medieval economic peak: later neighbourhoods, public buildings and nineteenth-century restorations added new layers to its fabric. Inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 2000, Brugge is therefore both a remarkably coherent historic ensemble and a living city shaped by successive periods of development.