Coming by car to visit Bruges and the charms of Flanders? Here’s the mini-guide to finding cheap parking in Bruges!
Where can I find cheap parking in Bruges? A rich port city, influential and powerful in the Middle Ages, Bruges is a city of 118,284 inhabitants (2018), located in northwest Belgium. With its rich past, the city boasts a rich historical heritage: it is on UNESCO’s World Heritage List three times. Its historic center, beguinage and belfry are listed by UNESCO. This makes it Belgium’s most popular tourist destination. A must-see on any trip to Belgium, Bruges is dotted with numerous canals that encircle the city center. It’s also known as the Venice of the North. What’s more, its neo-Gothic architecture gives the historic center a well-preserved, picturesque medieval feel.
But then you have to find a parking space. Parking in tourist towns is not always easy. And it can be expensive. Such is the case for parking in Bruges: downtown parking is expensive. In this article, we’ve taken a look at how to find a cheap parking space in Bruges.
Parking in Bruges: pay on the street
Photo Credit: Shutterstock / Doin
How do I find my parking zone?
To find a cheap parking lot in Bruges, the Seety website provides all the information you need. This includes parking regulations, rates and opening hours. What’s more, an interactive map shows where the color-coded parking zones are located. In Bruges, there are four parking zones:
- Orange: this means that on-street parking spaces are subject to a charge, and have a limited duration. Parking is limited to 4 hours, and is charged from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Rates in orange and dotted orange zones are €2 for 1 hour, €5 for 2 hours and €9 for 3 hours. The maximum charge for 4 hours is €14.
- Bleue: free parking, but limited to 4 hours.
- Verte: this is a free parking zone with no time limit.
- Black: this is a pedestrian zone, where parking is strictly forbidden, except by special dispensation.
Cheap parking solutions in Bruges
To find cheap parking in Bruges, the other solution is to park at the Bruges train station parking lot:
- Oesterparking (Koning Albert 1-laan). The price is €2.50 for the day, but without the bus ticket to the city center.
- There’s also the Bruge Interparkings station parking lot (rue Chantrell). The cost per day is just €3.50.
There are three ways to pay for street parking in Bruges:
- First, pay at the ticket office. If you’re not from Bruges, we’d advise you to pay at the ticket office.
- Secondly, the choice of payment via a mobile application. The title of the Town Hall application is « 4411 ». There are several charges for this: €0.25 transaction fee, and €0.15 for SMS notifications. You can also pay by bank transfer or credit card.
- Thirdly, payment by SMS. There is a €0.30 activation fee, and €0.15 for SMS notifications. Payment is made via the telephone bill.
Cheap parking in Bruges: park on the street for free
Photo credit: Shutterstock / evoPix.evolo
To find a free parking space on the street, Bruges has two zones. The blue and green zones allow you to park for free. But parking is limited to a maximum of four hours.
- In blue zones, the parking disc on the dashboard is compulsory from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., 7/7 days. Even when parking for free. Fraudsters who exceed the hourly quota are fined €30 per day.
- Dotted blue zone : free parking for up to 30 minutes, with parking disc. The fine is the same. In the dark blue zone, parking is free, but limited to a maximum of two hours from Monday to Friday. Parking discs are also mandatory.
- In the dark blue dotted zone, you can park for up to two hours, 7 days a week, on presentation of a parking disc, from 9 am to 6 pm.
- Finally, the green zone offers free parking with no time limit. This is the best solution for cheap parking in Bruges. But spaces are likely to be taken very early in the day. Go to the Bruges ring road, to Buiten Gentpoortvest for example. Buiten Boninvest, Via Katelijnestraat, Via Gentpoortstraat and Vaartdijkstraat are the streets where you can park for free.
But where can you park for free, with no time limit? The city also has free public parking lots.
- The Park & Ride P+R
- P+R Steenbrugge
- Jan Breydel P+R
- P+R Boogschutterslaan
Parking in Bruges in a secure pay parking lot
Don’t like parking on the street? Worried about vandalism? In Belgium, however, vandalism is much less likely to occur than in a French city. Do you need to leave your vehicle for several days?
- Go to the Centrum Station parking lot. This is a secure public parking lot with 1,500 spaces, set up by the town council. Rates are very affordable: €1.10 per hour up to 4 hours, then €5.50 maximum from 5 hours to 24 hours. Please note that there is no provision for parking beyond 24 hours.
The city also boasts three other parking lots: Zand, Centrumparkings and Langestraat.
- At the Zand parking lot, the first hour is free. Rates range from €3.40 for 2 hours to €14.40 for 9 hours.
- At the Centrumparkings and Langestraat parking lots, prices range from €1.80 for 1 hour to €14.40 for 8 hours.
Finding a cheap parking lot in Bruges is therefore possible, but if all the free or cheap spaces are taken, it will be complicated. Other public parking lots will be expensive if you stay for several hours. Not to mention the fact that you’ll have to pay for the bus back to the city center!