London to Liege

"My understanding is that MasterCard is accepted throughout Europe over Visa or American Express"

Not really - most places will take Visa and Mastercard, with Visa being the most common. American Express is less common. Any issues with Americans not being able to buy tickets online are likely related to some American card issuers not supporting two-factor authentication (where online transactions are confirmed using either a code from a text message or via their banking app). It's something the rest of the world does, but for some reason some American banks don't do.

Here is RS take on buying rail tickets vs rail passes: https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/transportation/trains/belgium-rail-passes Use this site to purchase rail tickets in Belgium: https://www.belgiantrain.be/en/tickets/search

It is not Rail Euro (no idea where that name comes from)- it is SNCB- Belgian Railways. If you book your Eurostar ticket to 'any Belgian station' you will have the one through ticket from London to Liege.

if you are a senior the train fares in Belgium are really really cheap. If not, they are quite reasonable.

Never heard of Rail Euro - they are probably some travel agency reselling real tickets for a premium with no responsibility. Worst case they could be selling fake tickets or just plain taking money.

Use the company who runs the trains. In Belgium the tracks and trains are SNCB, their stations have a big yellow stylized "B" over the door.

It is a very easy, if not short, ride from Brussels Zuid (where the Eurostar from London arrives) to Liege.

Get your Eurostar fares as soon as you are certain of date and time, the get much more expensive as the travel date gets closer.

For going to Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp, Liege is not the most obvious place to start your trip through Belgium. So is there a specific reason why you do this, assuming you only use public transport?

As Belgium is mainly bilingual and divided in two language areas the SNCB is the French name and NMBS the Flemish / Dutch name of the national railway company. The website leonard mentions is usuable for the whole country.

Liege is a city in Wallonia, i.e. the French speaking part of the country, roughly everything south of Brussels. The other places in Flanders, the Flemish speaking part. That means among others names of places are spelled differently. Like Gent is Gand in French, Antwerpen is Anvers and so on.

agreed with Wil - your prime destinations are the opposite direction from the Brussels Liege journey - you will be backtracking. So my question is the same - is there a particular attraction for Liege? Would it make sense to do the Flemish cities first and then Liege?

Where are you going next?

With"Rail Euro" I'm guessing you're referring to Rail Europe. They are a third party reseller. They don't even show all of your options. Nowadays, it's one of the worst places for single tickets.

Rick Steves still mentions them because they sell rail passes. Back in the day when most travelers bought rail passes, Rick Steves' company was one of the biggest sellers in the US. I guess they can't get it our of their minds.

For trains in Belgium, use the official SNCB Train website. They just launched a new one a few days ago claiming it's supposed to be easier to buy train tickets online.

As far as credit cards are concerned, Master Card and Visa are accepted the most and pretty much evenly. AMEX less and Discover hardly at all. If you are having trouble with a credit card, it probably comes from the issuer. Some cards will want to check that's it's really you when buying online and will either send you a text or email with a code you need to enter to complete the transaction.

You all have been so helpful! Thank you so much. In response to "why are we headed to Liege" - we want to watch the Liege-Bastogne-Liege race. Clueless where to go or how exactly to pull that off - but working on that too. We haven't mapped out an exact itinerary for the remainder of the week but I see RS has a suggested 7-day itinerary and will likely copy that. We are both bikers and will want to get in a little biking as well. We can be gone 10 - 12 days in all so have time to enjoy our visit without being too rushed. Looking forward to visiting Belgium!

Learning about European train travel is essential. But you should also know that, especially from Ostend to Leuven, DOMESTIC train travel in Belgium is more like an American commuter train, or even a little like a subway, than it is like The Orient Express. In the well-off Brussels-Brugge corridor, there are five unreserved trains or more per hour, and even young children may use them to get to school every day. It is a mistake to think of this like a trip from Brussels to Paris or Amsterdam. BTW, all tickets to Brussels are good to all three downtown stations, even if (Eurostar) you have to change to a local train to do it.

When you have done this research, you will see that third-parties like Rail Europe are not your salvation, they are a distraction. If you have a problem (like downed wires, or oversleeping), you may be better off with real tickets you bought yourself.

The credit card issue is that American cards, with or without chips, used to be rejected by automated ticket machines. Like the US, human ticket sellers are expensive to pay, so their wickets have long, long lines. I've met some who speak little English, which was a surprise. Posters on this newsboard now report success buying tickets at machines, with their credit cards.

This does not work, dollar-wise, for short trips in the corridor between Brussels and Brugge, but I have sometimes bought a Ten-Trip, unlimited domestic ticket in Belgium. You have to write the destination onto the next line of the ticket, before the train begins moving. I personally have found no difference between MC and Visa in northern Europe. You are better off with a PIN-priority Chip and PIN card, but those are still rare in the US. I got mine from a Credit Union.

Try to get a look at Calatrava's train station if you go to Liege. But there aren't many other reasons to go to Liege.

I have spent many weeks in Antwerp, my favorite place in the area. But I should admit that I have not been to Belgium in over ten years.

You certainly know that Liege-Bastogne-Liege is the last race of the Spring Classics and held two weeks after Paris-Roubaix, a week after the Amstel Gold Race and 4 days after the Flèche Wallonne. Roubaix is easy to reach with the train from Ghent or Bruges, for the countryside, especially those sections with the famous cobbled stones a car is needed. And even with that will be a serious challenge as it will be very crowded with supporters. The yearly Amstel Gold Race is held east of Maastricht in the Netherlands and not that far from Liege.

I know that your travels will start in Liege, nevertheless just a bit of info in case there is some interest in the other races and some flexibility in your planning too.

https://www.procyclingstats.com/races.php?year=2025&circuit=1&filter=Filter

Thanks for that info Wil. We have some limitations on our dates - commitments at home that we each need to work around - which is why we can't leave before April 24 and have to be home by May 5 at the latest. So the Liege-Bastogne-Liege seems our only option. Our thoughts are to get into Liege late afternoon Saturday, spend Sunday in Liege, and then head to the next city on Monday morning. My traveling partner really wants to be on the side of the road somewhere, watch all the racers zip by, and then she'll be able to say "I was there". This will likely be her only trip to Europe ever, this is what she wants to see, so I'm trying to make it happen for her.

Also thanks for the explanation about the commuter trains and train system in general. My goal is to be well-versed in all this by April so I don't like some stupid American that didn't do her homework.

bikeEurope - I hope you won’t miss the race and find a perfect spot watching the racers zip by. Enjoy your coming trip!

I bring over 4 credit cards, 3 of which are equipped with the PIN which I requested from the card company, 2 Visa, 2 Mastercard. It makes no difference if the PIN is needed or ever called for, I got it anyway using a PIN of my own choosing, not theirs.

I find no difference at all using MC and Visa in France when buying train tickets or Metro tickets from ticket machines this summer nor last summer, unless you run into a defective machine. That happened too.

No problems at all having these cards accepted if the establishment accepts them at all.

If you have the time, get off in Brussels , relax, and get another train ticket to Liege. If I wanted to see Liege, worth seeing too, I would do depart from Aachen.

Most domestic trains through Brussels stop at all three stations, but note that Eurostar goes only to Brussels Midi/Zuid. Free local train transfer to the other two if needed. Note pre-boarding Immigration time demanded by the Eurostar company in/to London, it is not optional.

Free local train transfer to the other two if needed ...

This was the case but it was discontinued on 15 December.

"|In the well-off Brussels-Brugge corridor, there are five unreserved trains or more per hour, and even young children may use them to get to school every day."

And I did do exactly that for years. On Wednesday school was finished earlier and so my train home was actually the Nord Express, that had cars coming from places like Copenhagen and even Moscow. In those days there were just "trains", and with a ticket, or in my case a commuter pass, you could just take any train on the route, wether it was a local, or an express coming from the other side of the continent.

Most trains are actually still like that. Mass transit. You get a ticket good for a route, and that permits you to be present in train on that route.

Free local train transfer to the other two [Brussels stations] if needed. NOT!

Marco, thank you very much for that important correction. The Eurostar website has implemented that fact by ... omitting any discussion of getting off at Brussels/Midi! I wonder if it has something do do with the upcoming loss of "exclusivity" for Eurostar in usage of the channel tunnel?

On the plus side, the "Any Belgian Station" optional add-on is more prominent than it used to be.

This certainly affects people, say, coming home from Bruges and wanting to glance at Grand Place on the way. But I presume that the (purely domestic) ticket from Bruges to "Brussels" still covers any of the three downtown stops. (Not the airport BRU.)

Because I have not been to Midi/Zuid in 15 years, I have no information on whether the surrounding outdoor area is actually, literally, dangerous, or if it's simply downscale, like most European train station areas. My opinion on that is colored by having to constantly correct Americans that New York City is among the safest large cities in the country!

I am so appreciative of all this information. We'll take Eurostar from London to Brussels/Midi on a Saturday. I'm debating whether to find a hotel within walking distance of this station - or head to the Central Station and find a hotel near there. I read mixed reviews of the area around Midi. Early Sunday we'll take the train to Liege and return to the hotel late Sunday. Then probably another day to explore Brussels before we head to next destination - which is currently undecided.