Bruges

The best-preserved medieval city in Europe and a UNESCO World Heritage site, where a golden-age cloth port fell poor when the sea silted away and slept for four centuries, so its whole medieval fabric survives intact. From the Belfry over the Market Square and the Basilica of the Holy Blood on the Burg to the silent Beguinage, the Lake of Love and the canals that earned it the name Venice of the North, the old town is a living museum. The Church of Our Lady holds a marble Madonna carved by Michelangelo, the only sculpture of his to leave Italy in his lifetime, and the Groeningemuseum keeps the masterworks of Jan van Eyck and Hans Memling, the Flemish Primitives who perfected oil painting here. Read the frozen golden age at your own pace.