Bruge - Day trips

Brussels is a quick and easy day trip - about an hour on the train. You can walk around the Upper Town, hit a museum, have a Belgian waffle or some hand made chocolates, visit the Grand Place and be back to Bruge in time for dinner.

If you are big beach fans and the weather's nice it might be worth making a trip to the coast. Only if you really like the beach though, there is absolutely nothing to recommend the Belgian seaside as a cultural/sightseeing destination.

Ghent might also be worth visiting but really Belgium is small enough that anywhere is a workable day trip destination if your base is on a main railway line.

Don't know when you plan to go, but taking the bus ride to Damme and then the paddlewheel boat ride back from Damme on a nice day is a lovely trip.
Be sure to spend enogh time in Bruges to savor the moments!

"that anywhere is a workable day trip destination if your base is on a main railway line." Which, of course, Bruges is.

In addition to the other recommendations in Belgium, here's a few of my own: Antwerp, Dinant (one of the prettiest towns in the Ardennes), the battlefields of Ypres (Iper) and Waterloo, Domijn Bokrijk near Genk (an outdoor folk museum... note, "Genk" not Ghent). You are also within daytrip distance of Luxembourgm and some places in the Netherlands, like Rotterdam, Den Hague and Delft.

I quite like Ostende and the beach. Heck, it is only 15 min. from Brugge. The promenade is nice, the tram goes all the way along the coast. There are nice sand dunes to walk, old WWII gun emplancements and bunkers along the beach, and the chocolate for sale in the stores downtown is just as good as in the stores in Brugge.

Have been there when the weather was nice and when it was windy and stormy looking. It is exciting then and you can get cool photos then. The beach gets pretty wide at low tide too.