VacationSelector
Rozenhoedkaai and the Belfry, Bruges
BrugesRozenhoedkaai and the Belfry
A madrasa and its minarets on the Registan, Samarkand
SamarkandA madrasa and its minarets on the Registan

Photos: Bruges by Michielverbeek, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped; Samarkand by Yaşar Başkurt, Pexels License.

Bruges or Samarkand?

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

  • beaches
  • families
  • getting around

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

Choose Samarkand for

  • prices
  • culture and sights

What lies behind each score is written up on Samarkand’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, Samarkand 4: Bruges leads by 24 points.
Food & drink. Bruges 56, Samarkand 54: Bruges leads by 2 points.
Culture & sights. Bruges 75, Samarkand 84: Samarkand leads by 9 points.
Nightlife. Bruges 27, Samarkand 14: Bruges leads by 13 points.
Nature & outdoors. Bruges and Samarkand are level on 40.
Day trips. Bruges 85, Samarkand 72: Bruges leads by 13 points.
Good for families. Bruges 54, Samarkand 30: Bruges leads by 24 points.
Getting around. Bruges 78, Samarkand 58: Bruges leads by 20 points.
Shopping & style. Bruges 45, Samarkand 42: Bruges leads by 3 points.
Affordability. Bruges 36, Samarkand 80: Samarkand leads by 44 points.
Live music & performing arts. Bruges 40, Samarkand 24: Bruges leads by 16 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Bruges 40, Samarkand 32: Bruges leads by 8 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Bruges and Samarkand.

Your match

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

Bruges
Best match
50match

Wins on beaches and families with your weighting.

Samarkand
45match

Wins on prices and culture and sights 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

Samarkand in July

34 °Cdaytime high
19 °Cnight-time low
2 mmrain in the month
12 hsunshine a day
No seasea
15 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

020406080100JFMAMJJASOND
BrugesSamarkand

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). Samarkand: 1991-2020 normals, Samarkand (10 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureBrugesSamarkand
Official languageFrench, German, DutchUzbek
CurrencyEuro (EUR)Uzbekistan Sum (UZS)
SocketsCE230 V, 50 HzCFI220 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightRight
Time zoneUTC+1, UTC+2 in summerUTC+5
Emergency number112112
Elevation2 m702 m
Main airportBrussels Airport (BRU)94 km from centre191 non-stop destinationsSamarkand International Airport (SKD)5 km from centre29 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year14 days-

By the numbers

MeasureBrugesSamarkand
City population118,509546,303
People per km²8405,058
Museums within 10 km3811
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km31
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 Samarkand 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. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates.

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.