How many days do you need in Belgium?
Six days. That is the length of the itinerary we built for Belgium, across Brussels, Ghent and Bruges.
Here is what each day holds. Every stop below carries its time, and every gap says how to get to the next stop, with the walk or drive time wherever both stops are mapped.
Belgium · 6 days Brussels → Ghent → Bruges
Best time: April to June and September for mild weather and long light.
Brussels: Galeries Royales Saint-HubertDay 1
🏛️9:00 AMGaleries Royales Saint-Hubert
A glass-roofed shopping arcade from 1847, one of the first in Europe and the model for many that followed. Free to walk, and beautiful in rain.
🚶 ~13 min · 🚗 ~2 min · 0.5 mi
🖼️1:30 PMRoyal Museums of Fine Arts
Bruegel, Rubens, and the Flemish Primitives in one building. The Magritte Museum is a separate ticketed wing and holds the largest collection of his work anywhere.
🚶 ~11 min · 🚗 ~1 min · 0.4 mi
🌆6:00 PMGrand Place and the lower town
The guildhall square Victor Hugo called the most beautiful in Europe, rebuilt in stone after a French bombardment in 1695. The gold leaf on the facades is real and gets recoated.
Brussels: AtomiumDay 2
🏛️9:00 AMAtomium
A 102m model of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times, built for the 1958 World's Fair and kept. Spheres are connected by escalators; the top one has the view.
🚗 ~24 min · 6.8 mi
🥾1:30 PMBois de la Cambre and Sonian Forest
The city's southern green edge running into an ancient beech forest that is UNESCO-listed. Trams reach the near end; the forest goes on for kilometres.
🚗 ~9 min · 2.5 mi
🎟️6:00 PMArt Nouveau walking tour
The facades are spread across residential Saint-Gilles and Ixelles and are easy to walk past without noticing. A guide is the difference between seeing three and seeing thirty.
Arrive in GhentDay 3
🚄8:30 AMTrain to Ghent
Brussels to Ghent-Sint-Pieters in about 30 minutes on frequent InterCity services from any of the three Brussels stations. No reservations on Belgian domestic trains; buy and board.
🚄 ~30m · 30 mi
🏛️2:00 PMGravensteen
A moated stone castle of 1180 in the middle of the city, complete with battlements and a genuinely grim torture collection. The audio guide is comic on purpose and works.
🚶 ~6 min · 🚗 ~1 min · 0.2 mi
🌆6:00 PMGraslei and Korenlei
The facing quays of medieval guild houses on the old harbour, and the place the whole city sits out on summer evenings with a drink on the stone steps.
Ghent: St Bavo's Cathedral and the Ghent AltarpieceDay 4
🏛️9:00 AMSt Bavo's Cathedral and the Ghent Altarpiece
Home of the Van Eycks' 1432 Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, the most stolen artwork in history. The restored panels are a paid timed visit with an augmented-reality element; one panel stolen in 1934 has never been recovered.
🚶 ~25 min · 🚗 ~3 min · 0.9 mi
🖼️1:30 PMSTAM city museum
Ghent's own story told in an old abbey, opening with a walkable aerial photograph of the whole city on the floor. The right first stop.
🚶 ~27 min · 🚗 ~3 min · 1.0 mi
🎟️6:00 PMCanal boat tour
Forty minutes through the old harbour and the moat, which is the only way to see the guild fronts the way they were designed to be seen, from the water.
Arrive in BrugesDay 5
🚄8:30 AMTrain to Bruges
Ghent to Bruges in about 25 minutes, several times an hour. Short enough that basing in one and visiting the other works, though staying in both is better.
🚄 ~25m · 25 mi
🏛️2:00 PMBelfry of Bruges
366 steps up a leaning 83m tower for the definitive view. A fixed number of people are allowed inside at once, so queues build by late morning. Go at opening.
🚶 Canals on foot
🌆6:00 PMMarkt
The main square under the belfry, ringed by stepped gable facades and horse-drawn cabs. Crowded until about five, then quiet enough to hear the carillon.
Bruges: Church of Our LadyDay 6
🏛️9:00 AMChurch of Our Lady
A brick spire of 115m, and inside, Michelangelo's Madonna and Child, the only sculpture of his to leave Italy in his lifetime, bought by a Bruges cloth merchant.
🚶 ~2 min · 🚗 ~1 min · 446 ft
🖼️1:30 PMGroeningemuseum
Six centuries of Flemish painting in a small building, anchored by Van Eyck and Memling. Compact enough to do properly in ninety minutes.
🚶 ~5 min · 🚗 ~1 min · 0.2 mi
🎟️6:00 PMCanal boat tour
Thirty minutes on the canals from one of the jetties near the Burg. Runs March to November; the low bridges are the point.
This is how Petrel lays out a trip. Upload your own confirmations and it builds this for your dates: flights and hotels included, with live flight status and the travel time between stops.
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