Being so old and so well preserved, it’s natural that Bruges’ medieval centre is one of the UN’s World Heritage Sites. Its artifacts are not just steeples and spires, but the very stones you step upon; some, it’s been said, may well have been laid when the world’s first stock exchange opened in Bruges. That was in the very early 1300s.

Given such a past, my wife Barbara and I chose a hotel that is deliberately close to it: Bruges’ Relais & Chateaux Inn of 24 rooms, fittingly named Hotel Heritage. Its comforts and taste reflect the worthy ambitions of its owners, Johan and Isabelle Creytens, who both come from Bruges. They insisted their inn, developed in the early 1990s (it was home to a wealthy banker long ago) would complement their loved city. Naturally, as with Relais & Chateaux in general, it does so, not just in structure and style but in grace and courtesy.

Bruges is a natural place for walkers. Barbara and I like walking. And given the appeal of Bruges, about two million visitors come each year. That means that Bruges has lots of guides, local people who know the city with an intimacy that comes from a lifetime in a place where, they’re proud to say, the past is always present. So we were grateful that, on our first day, one of Bruges’ most experienced guides met us at Hotel Heritage and took us walking. We hoped to get a basic familiarity for our own later walks. The guide was Louis Vande Kerckhoue, an actively retired economist, an erudite man, whose career had taken him pretty well everywhere, including Canada.

The history of Bruges is best seen and felt in two squares: Market Square and Burg Square. The former is the centre of the city’s commerce, past and present, but towering over it is the most spectacular belfry in Belgium.

It’s the Belfort. It rises 270 feet and dates distantly — to the 1200s, the period when Bruges was the world’s major commercial centre. If you have the stamina — not to exclude the nerve — you take 366 steps to the top.

Just below the viewing platform is a carillon with 47 bells. It’s still played manually. As crowds gather most evenings, three times weekly, Frank Deleu, Bruges’s official carillonneur, plays familiar and evocative music.

“The evening recitals attract large crowds in the belfry’s courtyard,” Deleu has written, “In the summer, quiet pleasure seekers that having waited here till the crowds melt away, drink in the music …” In imagination, I see such people climbing, as many often do, into horse drawn carriages whose clip clop on the stones echo in the memory of all who visit Bruges.

Our guide, whose interests include church history, took us to a legendary chapel just steps from the square: the Basilica of the Holy Blood. It’s a touch austere, with somewhat dark upper and lower chapels. In the lower chapel resides the symbol that is the reason for the inclusion of Holy Blood in the church’s name.

It’s a vial, located in the upper chapel, said to contain a few drops of the blood of Jesus, claimed to have been brought from Jerusalem to Bruges in the 12th century. Neither of us took this as literal truth, but Louis and I left agreeing with each other: there’s a place in all faiths for the role of myth and tradition.

Next we walked to the other square, The Burg. There we saw what, to me, is the city’s most glorious display. It’s not just architecture but architecture’s evolution over centuries.

Once there, our guide told us to face the beautiful Gothic Bruges Town Hall, dating to the 1370s. It has a line of six vertical and memorable windows. But the most striking moment came when he had us then look at the sequence of buildings, the one next to the town hall, the next one and after that the next.

Beside the Gothic Town hall was another public building but done in Renaissance style. To its side was one in yet another style, Neo-Classical. Beyond it was one in baroque style. “By standing here,” said Louis, “we can look in one minute at buildings side by side but representing several historical architectural styles.”

It was a special moment, one that is a reminder of what we all owe to the past, a truth reflected in words of the Dutch scholar of the 16th century, Erasmus: “It’s an unscrupulous intellect that doesn’t pay reverence to antiquity.”

Still Bruges appeals to more than the intellect. If, for example, you have a yen for chocolate, you’re in the right place, in fact it just might be too tempting: Belgians make the best chocolate in the world and, to prove it, there’s virtually an entire district with nothing but chocolates in every glistening window, including one store that began in 1857. It’s credited with creating what many say is the most tasty of Belgian chocolates, the “praline,” by filling an empty chocolate shell with other sweet pastes.

The meal we remember with most fondness was dinner at a well-established restaurant, a brief walk from Heritage Hotel. It’s Den Dyver, named for the canal by which it sits.

We sought it out for one reason: its reputation for fine Belgian cuisine. It rewarded us with an evening, not just of fine gastronomy but excellent wine pairings with each of several courses. (One memorable pairing: a white Gruner Veltliner with the appetizer course of mackerel, sushi and carrot soup.)

But Den Dyver pleased me in particular for one reason: its wonderful table water. It’s local water carbonated right at Den Dyver and brought to the table not just well-chilled but in unique, interesting bottles. Presentation matters. I’ll remember the food and of course will never forget Bruges. But take note, I have a special place reserved in memory for that great water.

Special to The Hamilton Spectator

If you go

We arrived in Bruges from Nice, France, an eight-hour day on a French TGV, using our Eurail pass available from ACPrail, a Montreal company. www.acprail.com.

For the Heritage Hotel see www.hotel-heritage.com which has a fine dining room called Le Mystique, wifi and I-pads in each of its 24 rooms. Den Dyver Restaurant’s website website www.dijver.be contains its menus and prices.

For general information on Bruges and Flanders in general check www.visitflanders.us.