Travelling from Brussels to Bruges; Bruges to Amsterdam

There are 2 trains leaving every hour from Brussels Midi Station to Bruges (Brugge). See this site for routes, maps, times and even purchasing and printing your bar coded tickets online.

http://www.b-rail.be

Trains run from Brussels to Bruges about every thirty minutes to an hour. We traveled from Paris to Bruges, changing trains in Brussels, and then back to Brussels a couple of days later with no problems. The biggest difference in the different trains seems to be the number of stops between Brussels and bruges.

Two trains also leave every hour from Bruges to Amsterdam, although you have to make a few line changes.

If you have difficulty navigating the NMBS site, here's a hint for picking the correct station name: [B] indicates the stop is served by the national rail (NMBS), [T] is for stops served by the Walloon (Frech-speaking) public transportation service, [DL] for its Flemish counterpart, and [BRU] for the Brussels public transit system.

Wow! Thanks everyone. It sounds like the Bruges to Amsterdam route might not be so easy. Although I guess transferring from one train to the other isn't that big of a deal.

Yea, if I remember correctly the trains heading to Ghent/Bruges from Brussels are extremely casual, almost like a commuter train. You can just show up and hop on; no need to check the schedule.

About getting to Amsterdam, just search for tickets from Brussels to Amsterdam, and plan accordingly to be back in Brussels in time to catch your train to Amsterdam.

Good luck,

Geoff

Here's video from Rick explaining some of the basics on traveling by train in Europe:

Actually, the route from Bruges to Amsterdam through Antwerp is faster than going back through Brussels by about an hour, and each has the same amount of line changes (Bruges-Antwerp-Schipol-Amsterdam vs Bruges-Brussels-Schipol-Amsterdam).

You don't have to change trains at Schipol, trains go direct to Amsterdam Centraal (they do stop at the airport en route).

Slight correction... some of the trains from Belgium terminate in Schipol, some go straight through to Amsterdam Centraal. It all depends on that particular train's route.

I'm not aware of any intercity train that either terminates or starts its journey at Schipol. I went through an entire day of connections from Bruges to Amsterdam at the Belgian Rail site, and all the trains go direct to Amsterdam Centraal.

Hmm, I saw them earlier... not sure why I can't see them now.

Alyssa, I traveled from Bruges to Antwerp with changes in Gent and Antwerp last month. Had no problem. Ticket was under 45 EUR and I bought it the day of travel. The ticket agent had advised me to take a route through Brussels because the route that I took had a very tight connection in Antwerp, but I made the train with no problem.

I also traveled from Brussels Midi to Bruges last month.

Check the schedules on the Belgian rail site.

Tom, you are not imagining seeing the change at Schipol. On the schedule that I printed out last month from the Belgian rail site, they showed one route where you switched trains at Schipol and arrived in Amsterdam at 13:03. Then they had another route that was went directly from Antwerp to Amsterdam, arriving at 13:06. However, when you looked more closely, the one that changed at Schipol was actually to Amsterdam Zuid.

I just want to make sure I am following all of you. You are referring to the rail line on the website www.b-rail.be, correct?

Thanks for all the responses by the way.