For reasons that are complicated to explain, we can only get to one of these two museums in Bruges.
Which should we choose?
I found the Memling rather uninteresting, but I would rate the Groeninge as one of the best small art museums in Europe. So, guess which one I would choose?
Jan van Eycks “Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele” in the Groeninghemuseum is to my opinion anyway worth a visit. This museum offers art of all periods (15th to 20th century) and I think for this reason more interesting to visit then the Memling Museum. The latter is about medieval art, but the Groeninghe has a nice collection of it too, even a Memling.
If you have Rick's guidebook covering Bruges, it lays out fairly detailed "highlight" tours of each museum, with small photos, and suggests allowing one hour for each tour described. Perhaps something in those descriptions will strike your fancy more than others.
I'd go with the Groeninge for sure.
I've with the other people - I'd pick the Groeninge in a heartbeat! I'm currently IN Bruges and the Memling was a waste of 8 Euros!!! By the way, Rick's guidebook is WRONG! There is NO audio guide at Memling. According to the three staff I talked to, they haven't had an audio guide in years! And very little is written in English. I could "do" this museum in 30 minutes - tops!
One other note, The Chocolate Line candy is wonderful but EXPENSIVE! I got 4 small pieces this afternoon and it costs 3.5 Euros which is really expensive!!!!