Bruges is likely the most complete remaining gothic city in the world, untouched by rapacious modernism and the world wars. One might mention Venice as a contender, but the renaissance was felt much more keenly in Italy. Rodenbach's epithet Bruges La Morte perfectly captures the sense of a city that modernity forgot.

Jan Breydel is a Flemish hero for leading an attack on the French garrison of Bruges, preceding the Battle Of The Golden Spurs (1302), in which the French were defeated outside Courtrai.
The belfry once displayed a golden dragon that is supposed to have been brought from Hagia Sophia by Baldwin, a count of Flanders who sacked Constantinople in 1204. The dragon was taken by the people of Ghent in 1382, where it remains today.
Facing the town hall on Burg Square there was once the cathedral of St. Donatian (a bishop of Reims), which was demolished in the French Revolution. In 1127, Charles The Good was praying there when he was slain by his Erembald foes, an act which provoked the citizens of Bruges and Ghent to take revenge on the Erembalds.
According to legend, the relic of the Holy Blood was brought from Jerusalem to Bruges in 1150 by Thierry of Alsace. Another theory says it came to the city from the Bucoleon Palace after Baldwin's sack of Constantinople. The vial of blood is regularly displayed to those visiting the basilica.
Aside from Michelangelo's famous sculpture, the Church Of Our Lady - which was under restoration at the time of my visit - contains the tombs of Charles The Bold and his daughter Mary Of Burgundy (who was married to Maximilian I).