How to Get Around Belgium

Getting in. Brussels Airport at Zaventem is the main gateway, with a rail link into the city in twenty minutes. Brussels South Charleroi serves low-cost flights and is an hour away by bus. High-speed trains connect directly to Paris, London, Amsterdam and Cologne.

Trains are the way to travel here. The network is among the densest in the world, nowhere is far, and the main cities are all within an hour of each other. Tickets are cheap, no reservation is needed on domestic services, and weekend return fares are discounted.

Trams and metro. Brussels has a metro, trams and buses on one ticket; Antwerp and Ghent have extensive tram networks. The coastal tram runs the entire Belgian coast end to end.

Cycling is excellent in Flanders, with dedicated infrastructure and a numbered junction network that makes route-planning simple. Wallonia is hillier and less well provided for.

Driving is straightforward but city centres are restricted, with low-emission zones in Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent that foreign vehicles must register for in advance.