Actual Train Station distance from three key cities in Brussels?

I use the map App/button on my phone to look at walking distances in places I will be before every trip. I check the distance from my lodging to anyplace I plan to visit on my trip.

As stated above, Google Maps is your friend. If you are a slower walker, plan additional time. For many people a 30 minute walk is nothing, for others it requires a taxi.

Many cities have a bus that runs a circuit to various points.

For the cities in Belgium you mention, I would base in Bruges or Ghent for my entire stay and do day trips to the other places.

Bruges has a Centrum shuttle minibus that has a circular route from the train station thru the Old Town. Previously it was free, but based reports here , it's now charging a few euros. We found it quite handy from our lodging.
For a day trip to Ghent, we used the P4 bus to the center of town from the train station. Check the current bus # as I believe construction may have affected the routes.
The above routes took 10-15 minutes on the various buses.
Public transportation is so easy to use in these areas, no reason to worry about walking distances. Save your legs for the actual exploring.
Have a great trip.

Hi Eddie! From the train station(s) Bruges is an easy 15 min walk, Ghent is about a 30 min walk. I can't speak to Antwerp. And for perspective, it was me (mid-50's) and my 23 yo son, both very fit. Enjoy your visit!

Thanks for the insights. We are torn between choosing Antwerp, Ghent, or Bruges, and the RS Forum members bring up so many good pros to each of these locations. I will scan through some more posts and then will go ahead and make a choice.

So far, it seems like Bruges is the most mystical/fairy tale-like, Ghent has half of that mystical feel but is also a bit more like a liveable everyday town, Antwerp surprises most and is the cleanest and a bit modern while still looking historic in some places. How is that for a good 30 minutes of RS forum reading - HA?

I haven't been to Antwerp yet, but in the last month I visited Brussels, Bruges and Ghent. My policy is to stay in the city with the most sightseeing of interest to me but not to plan two day-trips to the same city. There was enough of interest to me that I decided to stay in all three cities, but I had to contort my itinerary to avoid an expensive hotel stay during the Ghent Festival.

In Bruges you're walking past historic buildings much of the way from the station to the center of the old town. However, you are likely to encounter multipIe tour groups following pennant-waving guides along the way. If you stay in Bruges, you may need dinner reservations. However,
by that time of the day, the sidewalks are devoid of tour groups.

Ghent-St. Peters is a long way from the historic center. Part of that walk is through a rather unattractive commercial area. Just east of the train station (not on the way to the historic center) is some stunning Art Nouveau architecture.

Brussels has multiple train stations, but Brussels Central is the most centrally located. However, the city's major sites are not concentrated in a single area. Construction work outside Central Station has messed up a bunch of bus stops and also affected pedestrian paths (the latter primarily to the northeast). And that station is annoying if you are deaing with luggage or have mobility issues. It's hard to find an elevator or fully useful escalator. Signage is not good. I expected better from the capital of Belgium. Really liked the city; hated every trip through Central Station.

In Europe there always seems to be good transportation heading in all directions from the main train station. Frequency of that transportation is key, as is a willingness to pay the price for a hotel in a practical location, given your personal sightseeing plans. Checking out transit times to your points of interest is a good idea. When it came time to plan my movement around Brussels (often to odd locations not of interest to the typical US tourist), I found coverng relatively short distances took longer than I would have guessed. I hate standing around at bus stops and transfer points, so I ended up walking rather than riding most of the time.

In Brussels, Central is already almost in the historic centre. It's about 10 minutes' walk downhill to the Grand' Place and on the way there are many businesses, waffle shops, etc (acraven's reports about street works notwithstanding). If you make Brussels your base, there are many hotels between the station and the Grand' Place, so there is easy access to the trains.

Lavandula

Only in Ghent and Antwerp you need public transport for going to the main square area. However in Antwerp you can stroll through it's main shopping street Meir, takes some 20 minutes and fun to do.

The historical part of Bruges starts as soon as you cross the main road in front of the train station there. But you can take like Pat already remarks a minibus if you are looking for convenience. Or don’t want to drag your luggage all the way to your hotel in case you stay there.

In Brussels I would only walk from the central station, the area around the two other stations have drug related issues and therefore not so safe.

.

In Brussels I would only walk from the central station, the area around the two other stations have drug related issues and therefore not so safe.

Maybe your experience is different, but in my experience of cities, people that are out their nut on drugs being around doesn't necessarily make somewhere dangerous.

From the train stations it’s about a mile to the historic center in both Bruges and Antwerp. It’s further from Ghent-St. Peters so we took the tram that dropped us off by the castle.

Distance to the centers played no part in our decision. Our itinerary was train to Bruges (3 nights) upon arrival, then the Ghent (2N), then Antwerp (2N), and back to Brussels for a night before flying out

GerryM - Not my personal experience, but there is a drug war going on between gangs and the issues around it is often on the news in Belgium. Several areas in Brussels are affected with drug-related crime and violence (even public like recently near metro entrance Clemenceau) and one of them is that around Brussels Midi (South) Station. The area around Brussels North Station has issues too.

This is more serious than just seeing some addicts, causing from time to time some inconvenience. No idea how really bad the situation is at the moment, but serious enough to mention to my opinion.

Ah fair enough. I've found that if I mind my own business, things like drug wars are very unlikely to affect me.

As far of my experience of Midi goes, it's years ago I was there. It's filthy and the surrounding blocks are thick with decades of graffiti tags. It's a bit of a disgrace to Brussels that it's what people see coming off the Eurostar. I had a look on Streetview fairly recently and it looks much the same. The couple of times I've arrived in Brussels there, I've walked to my friend's place in St. Gilles at night with no issues.

Eddie, your capsule summary of this newsboard's opinions is very good. You didn't leaven it with "crowding" issues. (What month of the year for you?) An important difference with Antwerp is how much bigger a city it is, and how many things there are to do besides walking and looking. You also need special plan for Mondays, when some museums can be closed, but you have to look up each museum for timely info. Mystic Lamb is 7-days, but advance booking required.

For some reason, I have always walked (with a rolling suitcase) from the Antwerp Hilton (Groenplaats) to the main train station there. It doesn't feel like a mile, and it has lots to see. I mean I've done it a dozen times. After all, it takes a while to walk to the tram or bus, and wait for the transport, and then it makes stops on the way. I have walked and bussed in both Gent and Bruges. But I agree that the trip to the train is important for the otherwise easy daytripping in this area. I trust you know how much farther it is to Lille.

I have not been to Belgium in some years, so I don't know how accurate these stories about Brussels crime are; People say that, grossly inaccurately, about places like New York City (my home area) and Paris, just because they are not like a suburban or rural area-And even a rural bar in Montana is dangerous these days ... ... But nobody wants to acknowledge that violent crime is higher at home than in Europe.

I have found that commuter crowds and lines to buy tickets (even at machines) are a factor in morning excursions. Make sure you have a couple of credit cards, to be sure of using the faster ticket machines, over waiting forever for a human ticket seller. You may have to stand for part of the train ride.

The area around Midi is messy (mainly) because of roadworks for a metro extension, but inside the station everything is normal.

The works around Central station are too far away to have any impact on the Grand Place itself. About access to the various hotels, I do not know.

Just a few weeks ago, I arrived in Nord station around 22.30 one evening and had to walk to a rather distant taxi rank. I am an old lady and not super mobile, but there were no problems at all.

To GerryM, the drug gangs problems are mainly on the Anderlecht side of the Midi station, not the St-Gilles side.

I assume Antwerp is as safe to visit as always, but I have no recent personal experience. Also in Brussels, I would say the places tourists usually go to are as safe as usual. I have some Italian family members staying with me at the moment, and they did not report anything unusual around Gare Centrale and the Grand Place.

When I say a lot of the problems are in Anderlecht, this means around metro station Clemenceau and in the zone of Cureghem/Bara. Cureghem is a part of Anderlecht, and already had a bad reputation when I was passing there daily, going to school by bus in the late fifties. It was more for social unrest then, not drugs.

As for metro Clemenceau, I was there not long ago and it looked as usual, but this was at 19.00, and problems tend to occur later in the evening.

Hi, I've cleaned out a few posts that were getting too far off topic. Please ensure that your posts are directly helpful with regard to the OP's question.

Noted with thanks. Sorry for digressing from that topic.

I hope your Q&A is addressed well.