De Reyghere has been on the Markt since 1880 — the street-facing facade has a large window display and a heron emblem above the glass (reyghere is the old Flemish word for heron). The interior is a proper bookshop: deep, organised, with floor-to-ceiling shelves holding Dutch, French, and English titles in literature, history, travel, and the arts, alongside maps, stationery, and a well-selected children's section. The stock is curated with a local readership in mind — Belgian authors in multiple languages, regional histories, Flemish fiction. De Reyghere is not a tourist address; it is the bookshop that serves a city of readers, which is a different kind of place. The map section is particularly good. The kind of shop where a short visit becomes a deliberate one.
Markt, Bruges, Belgium