Belgium travel

Without knowing your exact itinerary it's hard to give an accurate answer. But if you use the Belgian Rail site and plug in the places you want to go, it will automatically give you bus routes for areas that are not served by trains.

Thanks Michael. Many of these breweries are in remote parts of Belgium so I will bet that renting a vehicle is a must.

The bus system mostly augments the rails in Belgium. Rail stations act as the hub, and the buses act as the spokes that take you farther afield to places not directly accessible by rail. So, it's usually a matter of taking the train to an outlying station, than catching a local bus from there to your destination. Its really not designed to transport passengers from one part of the country to another. For the Flemish region, the bus system is "De Lijn", and for the Walloons, "TEC".

Thanks Tom.

And one more thing... very few breweries offer tours to the general public. De Half Maan in Brugge (makers of Bruges Zot) is one of the few that gives regular tours, and even that isn't their main brewing facility. Some of the more well known breweries operate an affiliated restaurant to accommodate beer pilgrims, but in my experience of the three I've visited, the food is below the usual Belgian standard. You end up going out of your way to drink the same beer you could have at any better restaurant.

Jerry, I took the tour for Zot and stayed all afternoon in their Beer Garden. ; ) It was easy to find other beers to try in Brugge and for that matter in Amsterdam. I'm still trying to budget to buy Belgian beers here. ; ) Pam

In this post http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm/rurl/topic/57412/brussels-delhaize-trappist-beers.html I mentioned 7 different breweries where individuals can show up on certain days. It's curious to see that all seven villages and cities are located on the western half of the 'Vlaanderen Fietsroute', a bicycle loop in Belgium. Main challenge will be to cycle first, then to do the beer tasting and the guided tour and to make sure that your accomodation for the night is quite closeby. ;-)

Thanks Fiets.