Greetings!
My wife and I are planning a trip around New Year's to Brugge. Is the weather in Brugge around this time a deal breaker? We live in Chicago and are not strangers to rough weather around this time of year, but thought it would be best to check first. Thanks!
Brugge is close to the English Channel, so the weather is more like London than like, say, Berlin. Of course, visiting a 'walking' city in winter requires being prepared for cold, windy walking. If you are interested in Christmas Markets, you should check those dates specifically. Since you are coming from Chicago, do you have some other potential cities to visit? You can certainly see the rest of Flanders by train daytrip from Brugge, and I hate changing hotels. But Brugge is not my favorite city in Flanders. Is price a factor? Your hotel's proximity to the train station affects your ability to daytrip from any city. Belgium has good public transportation, so you can check for bus and tram routes from the station, as well.
In December you must be very lucky to have romantic weather in Bruges, meaning little wind and snow. Expect more temperatures around freezing point combined with damped windy weather and especially with rain it invites not directly to do something outdoors, nevertheless the Christmas Market remains popular. In recent years the weather in December can be relatively quite warm with sometimes temperatures around 10 °C and even more.
As long as you stay in the historic centre it will be easy to find a busstop within walking distance for going with the bus to the railway station. You can save money buying a "Lijn" card (ten ride ticket) for €16,- in case you use the bus several times. For using the train you need seperate tickets from national carrier NMBS/SNCB.
If you’re from Chicago, you should feel right at home. The one time I was in Brugge between Christmas and New Years, it was very cold.
View the movie "In Bruges", it was shot mostly in March but will give you an idea of what weather can be like there in the colder months--it's farther north in latitude than any US city.
Go for it and look at the weather forecasts before you go and have fun!
