Brussels first. Bruges next.
Gilded guild houses, canal boats under the Belfry, chocolate worth queueing for and the road west to Flanders Fields. What each tour is like, what it costs, where to book it.
Book the boat, the belfry and the chocolate.
Two cities do most of the work on a first Belgian trip, and these are the bookings that fill them. A boat through Bruges before the coaches land, an hour at a Brussels chocolatier’s marble slab, a beer cellar you would otherwise walk straight past.
From Brussels: Guided Day Trip to Bruges and Ghent
Guided Brussels day trip to Bruges and Ghent with expert storytelling, key medieval sights, and time to stroll, snack, and relax.
From $55 per person
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Bruges is best before the coaches land.
At eight the Rozenhoedkaai belongs to swans and delivery bikes. Take the water first, climb the Belfry while your legs still agree, then let the afternoon go slow around the Begijnhof. Most visitors give Bruges a single day; the right boat and the right guide are what make that day count.
Which second city gets your day?
Almost every Belgium trip is Brussels plus one more town, and the three candidates are an hour apart on the same railway line. Here is what each one actually feels like, so the day lands where you would enjoy it most.
The picture-book one
Bruges
from $41 · 2,759 reviews
Canals, cobbles, a belfry with 366 steps, and about eight million visitors a year sharing them. Go early or go on the water and it earns every bit of the reputation. Pick Bruges if you want one flawless day and a chocolate shop every hundred metres.
See the Bruges tours →
The one locals pick
Ghent
1 hour 45 minutes (approx.) · from $3 · 646 reviews
A castle with a moat in the middle of town, the Van Eyck altarpiece round the corner, and a student city that still lives in its own centre. Boat trips down the Graslei cost less than in Bruges and the evening goes on longer. Fewer coaches, same medieval skyline.
See the Ghent tours →
Rubens and retail
Antwerp
10 hours · from $57 · 1,019 reviews
A railway station people photograph more often than the cathedral, Rubens at home and in his church, the diamond quarter, and the best shopping in Flanders. Antwerp rewards a walking tour and a long lunch rather than a checklist.
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Cobbles, lamplight and a decent ghost story.
The day trippers leave on the six o’clock train and the old towns hand themselves back. Canals turn black and gold, guides start telling the versions with executions in them, and the cellar bars with sixteen taps and no sign on the door begin to fill. Evening walks and tastings in Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp.
Chocolate is a workshop, not a souvenir.
Belgian chocolate makes a lot more sense once you have tempered a bowl yourself and split a batch. The good sessions run about two hours, feed you as you go, and send you out with a box you made. The tasting walks cover the Sablon shops and the fries stand you would otherwise miss.
Beer here means a cellar, not a crawl.
Trappist ales brewed inside working abbeys, lambic left open to whatever drifts through a Brussels roof space, gueuze blended like wine. Tastings run small and seated, with somebody on hand to explain why the sour one is the good one and which glass it has to arrive in.
Ghent kept its castle and its nerve.
Gravensteen still has a moat and a working portcullis in the middle of a city of 265,000 people. The Graslei still has its guild fronts, the Van Eyck altarpiece is a ten-minute walk from both, and Antwerp’s cathedral holds four Rubens where he meant them to hang. This is the century Flanders got rich in, and it is all still standing.
Pick the town, then pick the day.
Brussels for the Grand-Place, the museums and the chocolate. Bruges for the water. Ghent for the castle and the student tables. Antwerp for Rubens and the shops. Wallonia and the smaller Flemish towns are thinner ground, and the counts below say exactly how thin.
Pick the kind of day, not the town.
Twelve ways to spend a Belgian afternoon. Each one opens on a list with prices, durations and a plain account of what happens.
The Western Front runs through West Flanders.
Ypres, Passchendaele and Messines are about ninety minutes west of Brussels and an hour from Bruges. Tours reach the cemeteries, the museums, the preserved trenches and the mine craters, generally with a guide working from regimental records, and can trace a single soldier or a single battalion if you ask in advance. The Last Post has been sounded under the Menin Gate every evening since 1928.
Brussels, Bruges, and one more.
Belgium rewards a short trip. Two nights in Brussels, one long day on the water in Bruges, and a third day you get to choose. Trains run every half hour and nothing costs more than about fifteen euros to reach, so this order works from either end.
Day 1
Brussels on foot
The Grand-Place before the terraces fill, the Sablon chocolate shops by eleven, then whichever museum you argued about. A beer cellar opens at four and the city is small enough to walk end to end.
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Day 2
The Bruges day
First train out, boat before the queue at the Rozenhoedkaai builds, Belfry stairs while the legs still agree. Afternoons belong to the Begijnhof and a long table somewhere off the Markt.
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Day 3
Ghent, or Antwerp
Ghent for the castle, the Graslei and student prices. Antwerp for Rubens, the station and the shopping streets. Both sit under an hour from Brussels and neither needs an early start.
Plan day three →
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