Are You Interested?
Contact UsBelgium’s capital, Brussels, is a lively city you can’t miss on your trip to the country. To see its highlights, a day in this city will be enough. However, you’ll need more than one day if you want to visit some of its museums and areas outside of the city center.
Brussels is also a great place to base yourself when you’re visiting Belgium. It’s located in the middle of the country, which makes it easy to access any region from here to offer in one day.
Ghent and Bruges are just a 25-minute train ride apart from each other, and it’s perfectly possible to see the best of what these Flemish cities have to offer. You can either visit them independently by using public transportation or by booking a day tour from Brussels. If you have more time in Belgium, I’d recommend staying in Bruges for a full day.
Although Ghent is a very beautiful city, it’s quite small, and there are few tourist attractions here. This is why I find it most logical to visit Ghent first and spend the rest of the day in Bruges. Note that the train stations in both cities aren’t in the city center so you’ll need to take the bus or tram to get there unless, of course, you want to walk.
Today, it’s time to head to Wallonia, the French-speaking part of Belgium. You can reach Dinant by train from both Bruges and Brussels. However, if you’re coming from Bruges, the train ride will take approximately 3 hours whereas the ride takes a little less than 2 hours from Brussels.
Note that you can’t reach the castles surrounding Dinant by public transportation, so the easiest option would be renting a car for one day. If this is not an option, it’s possible to take the taxi (a 15-minute ride) from Dinant.
If you have four days or more in Belgium, it’s time to head to Antwerp today. This Flemish city is a 40-minute train ride from Brussels or a 2,5-hour ride from Dinant.
Antwerp is the diamond capital of the world. It’s a beautiful city with many interesting sights and it has an interesting legend.
According to this legend, the name Antwerp comes from hand werpen, meaning ‘to throw a hand’ in Dutch. The story goes that a long time ago, Brabo killed a giant that demanded a toll on people that wanted to enter the city. When people didn’t want to pay, the giant would cut off their hands and throw them in the river. Brabo decided to fight the giant by cutting off his hand and throwing it in the river.
Bouillon is a beautiful destination in the Walloon Semois Valley of Belgian Luxembourg. If renting a car is not an option, you’ll have to take the train to Libramont and TEC bus number 8 to get there.
Libramont is a 2-hour train ride from Brussels and a 3-hour ride from Antwerp. The bus ride from Libramont to Bouillon takes another hour.
Francoise is the president and founder of Celestial Voyagers. She graduated with a tourism degree at Nice University in France and has worked as a tour director and operations manager in France, Australia and Mexico. Settling in New York City, she founded Celestial Voyagers with the aim of creating uniquely curated group travel for adults and Academia.