Lumina Domestica — Attraction in Bruges

Lumina is housed in the same museum as the Chocolate Museum in Bruges. It only costs an extra €4 which is a real bargain.

The museum takes the visitor through the history of lighting and consists of one man's collection of over 6,500 lamps from the earliest rough stone prehistoric lamps through to highly decorative candlesticks and oil lamps from the 20th century. There are also very early light-bulbs and lighting-related advertising. When you think about it, the ability to light our homes probably changed human lives than almost anything else, so it's fascinating to see how technologies (and lighting efficiency) changed over the centuries, thus allowing us to do more in the dark hours. Now we enjoy bright light 24 hours a day if required, so imagine what it was like for people when they were first able to bring a dim and feeble glow into their homes that allowed them to extend their leisure and working hours.

The collection is extraordinary and will appeal to anyone who loves archaeology, antiques, the history of interiors, product design or technology. There is an extensive display of Roman oil lamps, and wonderful medieval lamps in various styles and designs. The displays are well-presented in this modern museum that is located in one of the historic buildings of Bruges.

If you're feeling a bit overwhelmed by the busy city streets and local attractions then you should wander round Lumina as it's a rarely visited gem. When we went, the part of the building that is The Chocolate Story was nicely busy, however we looked round Lumina all by ourselves - not one other visitor was to be seen. When we mentioned this to the woman at the reception desk she told us that the chocolate museum routinely had about 500 visitors a day, whereas a good day attendance at Lumina was only 5 or 6 people. Yes, you read that right... 5 or 6 individuals. Very sad. We do hope it won't...

This place was so interesting. We visited after the chocolate museum as its in the same building. And was discounted for the two plus we had a hot choc inbetween as well. But we highly recommend a visit. Theres so much to see and the info is so interesting.. light through time from fire to modern day sources. Great if weather isnt so good. It was empty when we went which was such a shame as we found it more interesting than the very good chocolate story. We are older so that may have a bearing on our likes....

Great collection of lamps from all over the world. Fascinating to see.

It could be improved though with less of the exhibition on oil lamps and instead more grouping and details on the decorative art eras of modern lighting.

Looks like exhibition hasn't been updated since 2014 as the section on fluroescent, LEDs, lasers is very...