I am sorry if this has been covered but I need more remedial advice... I have taken a day bus trip from Paris to Brugges (8 years ago) and I recall it was a long trip and we were only able to spend a few hours there - not enough time! Now I am going with my husband. We plan to be in Paris in late August. I understand there is a train from Paris to ? from the Gare du Nord station.
First, how do you get fromt h the center of Paris to this train station?
Second, what train line should I look for? If it's not direct, then where does it stop?
If there is a songle site I can refer to, that would be great. Any advice is appreciated. I am a "do it yourself-er" but I need some Direction. Thanks!
Posted by
Ottawa, Canada
4555 posts
Audrey....no problem. If you can stay overnight, so much the better....it's a wonderful place to be as the sun sets and the crowds go home!
Posted by
Ottawa, Canada
4555 posts
Merrie....you can buy and print out tickets at the TGV-Europe website, which belongs to the French national rail service. Where it asks, make sure you keep selecting Canada or Great Britain as your home country, or country where you wish to pick up your tickets, to keep the site in English, and to keep you from being kicked over to the RailEurope website.
You will leave from the Gare du Nord, which is almost in the center of Paris anyway, on many metro routes. Go to maps.google.com and copy and paste these coordinates in ( 48.880289, 2.354915 ), and you will be taken to the location of the station. You can then use the map to see how far it is from where you're staying....any hotel employee should be able to tell you how to get there by metro.
The fast train will take you to Brussels Midi station...there, you will transfer to a local Belgian train for the journey to Bruges. The maximum travel time, Paris-Bruges, will be no more than three hours. PRices can be as low as 84 Euro pp, round trip. You'll get a maximum of 11 hours from arrival in Bruges until you have to be back on board.
As I noted, some tickets can be printed out at home. For the others, you can select to pick them up an any railway ticket office....bring the e-mail confirmation with the reservation number on it, and the credit card used to purchase them.
Posted by
Manchester
495 posts
For train and fare information sncf.com is the site of the French national railway, you can do a search for trains from Paris-Bruges although you'll quickly see that who ever designed the site really hates the train-travelling public.
bahn.de is the German rail site but it has comprehensive European timetables and an easy to use search feature. Unfortunately it won't show prices or let you buy non-German tickets.
Anyway, the train from Paris-Bruges takes about 2hr40m so with an early start/late night you could just about do a rushed day trip.
As for getting to Paris Nord, it's connected to the metro and bus networks and there's always a taxi.
Posted by
Keizer, Oregon, USA
588 posts
Norm, I just want give you kudos for giving very specific instructions on Merrie's question. I am planning to do something similar next year as I have not been to Bruges. Great help to her and to me! Thanks.
Posted by
Jackson, WY, USA
20 posts
I am also traveling to Brugge--I am flying into CDG airport at 0830 then traveling to Bruges by train--I was doing some train research--it looks like there are trains from the airport into Brussels--would this be the best bet or should I take a train to Gare Nord and then to Brugge--
Posted by
Ottawa, Canada
4555 posts
Yes, there are trains direct CDG-Brussels. But the first one leaves the Terminal 2 train station at 9:40, which you probably won't make with an 8:30 arrival. The next one isn't until 12:35 pm. You could concieveably take the RER in and then turn right around and take the first train back out to Brussels, but you'd still have to give yourself some extra time in case your flight is late, or you get caught in a rush at customs/immigration. It might be better just to go straight from CDG to save yourself any extra hassle.