VacationSelector
Rozenhoedkaai and the Belfry, Bruges
BrugesRozenhoedkaai and the Belfry
Place d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica, Montreal
MontrealPlace d'Armes and Notre-Dame Basilica

Photos: Bruges by Michielverbeek, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Montreal by Arild Vågen, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Bruges or Montreal?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Bruges for

  • day trips
  • culture and sights
  • getting around

What lies behind each score is written up on Bruges’s own page.

Choose Montreal for

  • nightlife
  • live music and the arts
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Montreal’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Bruges 28, Montreal 25: Bruges leads by 3 points.
Food & drink. Bruges 56, Montreal 78: Montreal leads by 22 points.
Culture & sights. Bruges 75, Montreal 60: Bruges leads by 15 points.
Nightlife. Bruges 27, Montreal 75: Montreal leads by 48 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bruges 40, Montreal 66: Montreal leads by 26 points.
Day trips. Bruges 85, Montreal 55: Bruges leads by 30 points.
Good for families. Bruges 54, Montreal 68: Montreal leads by 14 points.
Getting around. Bruges 78, Montreal 72: Bruges leads by 6 points.
Shopping & style. Bruges 45, Montreal 60: Montreal leads by 15 points.
Affordability. Bruges 36, Montreal 45: Montreal leads by 9 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bruges 40, Montreal 76: Montreal leads by 36 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bruges 40, Montreal 57: Montreal leads by 17 points.
0255075100

What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bruges and Montreal.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Bruges
50match

Wins on day trips and culture and sights with your weighting.

Montreal
Best match
61match

Wins on nightlife and live music and the arts with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Bruges in July

21 °Cdaytime high
16 °Cnight-time low
77 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
18 °Csea
16 hdaylight a day

Montreal in July

27 °Cdaytime high
18 °Cnight-time low
98 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

-10°0°10°20°30°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0255075100125JFMAMJJASOND
BrugesMontreal

Where the figures come from

Bruges has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Bruges's sunshine is measured 37 km from the centre, at Vlissingen.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Bruges: 2009-2025 (sunshine 1991-2020, rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Zeebrugge / Zeemanshaard (15.8 km from centre). Montreal: 1991-2020 normals, Montreal McTavish (3.2 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBrugesMontreal
Official languageFrench, German, DutchFrench, English
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Canadian Dollar (CAD)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzAB120 V, 60 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC-5, UTC-4 in summer
Emergency number112911
Elevation2 m31 m
Main airportBrussels Airport (BRU)94 km from centre191 non-stop destinationsMontreal / Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL)16 km from centre166 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureBrugesMontreal
City population118,5091,895,211
People per km²8403,806
Museums within 10 km3837
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km30
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone-

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Bruges or Montreal somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Tourism statistics from Eurostat, © European Union, reused under CC BY 4.0. Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-10-31. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.