Brussel's Train Stations

Too many to count, it seems! Yes, Brussels is a bilingual city...Wallonian (Dutch)and French, so virtually everything has two names. Brussels Midi/Zuid is the same station...Midi in French (Middle), and Zuid in Dutch (South). Oh well, the two groups could never agree on much. It's the stop for Thalys and Eurostar high speed trains.
Other main stations include Centraal (the closest one to Grand Place and the tourist areas), and Noord (or, in French, Nord...at least they agree on this one!), which you will probably have no need of using. Any connections to Belgian trains can be made at either station...for trips to places like Bruges or Gent.

Thank you so much for clearing that up. My husband and I almost missed a connection because we thought we were at the wrong station.

"Brussels is a bilingual city...Wallonian (Dutch)and French"... Ooh, Norm, if I made that error, my Flemish wife would never forgive me.

Norm in Ottawa: "Midi in French (Middle), and Zuid in Dutch (South)"... In French, "midi" means "noon" or "south", not "middle".

Tom...your absolutely right! Wallonia is the French section....Flemish refers to the Dutch side. My Dutch friends will kill me if they see this!
Alex....That's funny....I've always thought Midi meant middle as in mid-day (noon), apres-midi (after mid-day)....and South in French was Sud, as in Nord, Est, Sud, et Ouest. Never heard South referred to as Midi. Maybe a Canadian French thing.

From Wikipedia: The name le Midi derives from mi (middle) and di (day) in Old French. Midday was synonymous with the direction of south because in France the Sun is in the south at noon, like in all of the Northern Hemisphere. The synonymy exists in Middle French as well, where "meridien" means both midday and south. [end of quote]

So in effect, midi does mean middle, because noon is the middle of the day, and thus midday.

Kate - as the other posters pointed out Brussels is Flemish and French but beware that all places are not equally marked. We found that we got on a train/subway named something in one language but returning home the other language would be more prevalant. Just pay special attention to your stops.