Belgium is four cities and a short train ride.
Which brewery pours the sour stuff. Which chocolate workshop hands you the marble slab. How to have Bruges to yourself after the coaches leave. Reviews of every tour in the country.
The four cities Belgium is built around.
Brussels for the grand square and the beer halls, Bruges for the canals, Ghent for the castle in the middle of town, Antwerp for diamonds and Rubens. Plus the two things almost everybody books before they arrive.
Belgian beer, from lambic cellar to abbey bar.
Every brewery tour →
Lambic still ferments in open vats in the Senne valley, Trappist ale is still brewed behind abbey walls, and a good Brussels café list runs past three hundred bottles. These three fill up first.
Four bars, four styles, one guide
Art Nouveau rooms a few streets off the Grand Place, a lambic that tastes like sour apples, and somebody who can read a beer list three hundred long.
Inside a working brewery
Copper, steam and hot malt, then a glass poured at the foot of the tanks it came out of. The city breweries run these most afternoons.
Abbey bars and polder roads
Beers that never leave their province, a farm café that cooks with them, and flat roads back through the polders while somebody else drives.
Belgian chocolate, made in front of you.
The praline was invented in a Brussels shop in 1912 and the country has been arguing about it since. The workshops hand you the marble slab, the piping bag and a box to fill; the tastings walk you between the houses that still make theirs in the back.
The days travellers in Belgium book most.
Every review →Canal seats, chocolate benches and the vans out to Flanders Fields — the tours that fill first across the country, and what each one gives you.
1
Atomium Entry Ticket with Design Museum Ticket
See the Atomium's 360 views and exhibitions plus the Design Museum Brussels on one self-guided day ticket.
From · $19
Read our review →
2
Guided Day Trip to Bruges and Ghent
from $55
3
Bruges & Ghent Day Tour – 2 Fairytale Cities
from $57
4
50-Minute Medieval Center Guided Boat Trip
from $12
5
Choco-Story Brussels: Chocolate Museum Entrance with Tasting
from $18
6
Bruges and Ghent – Belgium’s Fairytale Cities – from Brussels
from $59
7
Small Group Boat Cruise and Guided Walking Tour
from $51
8
Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour
from $29
Eat Belgium properly: fries first, waffle later.
Fries come twice-fried in a paper cone with a sauce you choose by pointing. Waffles split the country in two — dense Liège from a street cart, light Brussels on a plate under sugar. A tasting walk gets you both, plus cheese, a jenever and a beer to finish.
What a day out in Belgium actually costs.
Every tour on the site, sorted by price. A lot of the best of Belgium comes in under the price of a round.
Canal boats, walking tours, waffle stops and chocolate tastings — the everyday best of the four cities.
Full brewery days, the runs out to Flanders Fields, workshops where you fill your own box.
Private drivers, small groups out to the abbeys and the Ardennes, and a guide you do not have to share.
Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp are all an hour away.
Belgium is small enough that the other three cities are day trips from wherever you are sleeping. Trains run two or three an hour and none of it takes long.
Bruges
Bruges empties out around five when the coaches leave, and the canals go quiet enough to hear the carillon. Take the boat early, walk out to the ring of windmills in the afternoon, and keep the Markt for the evening when the gables are lit and the terraces are yours.
- 1Small Group Boat Cruise and Guided Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 4,102 reviews
- 2Guided Tour & Boat Ride with Optional Beer Tasting★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 3,894 reviews
- 3Historical Walking Tour: Legends of Bruges★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,541 reviews
Ghent
Ghent has the same medieval bones as Bruges with a university on top, so the quays fill with students rather than tour groups. A moated castle sits in the middle of town, the Van Eyck altarpiece is a short walk from it, and the night ends in a jenever bar.
- 150-Minute Medieval Center Guided Boat Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 5,637 reviews
- 2Historical Walking Tour: Legends of Gent★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,761 reviews
- 340 Minute Medieval Center Guided Boat Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 884 reviews
Antwerp
Antwerp trades in diamonds, fashion and Rubens, and the station alone justifies the ticket. The cutting district behind Centraal is a few blocks of workshops and vaults; the cathedral still holds the Rubens canvases where he meant them to hang.
- 1Historical Walking Tour: Legends of Antwerp★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,837 reviews
- 2City Highlights Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 816 reviews
- 3City Highlights Guided Bike Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 529 reviews
The battlefields are an hour from Bruges.
Ypres was flattened between 1914 and 1918 and rebuilt stone by stone; the Last Post has sounded under the Menin Gate at eight almost every evening since 1928. South-east of Brussels, the Ardennes hold the winter ground of the Bulge, and Waterloo is twenty minutes down the road. Day trips run from Bruges and Brussels with time at the cemeteries and the museums.
- 1Great War Flanders Fields Minibus Tour w/ Lunchfrom $130
- 2Flanders Fields Remembrance Tour from Brusselsfrom $113
- 3Flanders Fields Remembrance Tour from Brugesfrom $95
Belgian rain is a schedule, not a surprise.
Through the winter half of the year it rains about one day in two, and a Belgian afternoon can hold all four seasons anyway. The answers are indoors and mostly edible: a marble slab and a piping bag, a brewery cellar, the glass roof of the Galeries Royales, a museum with the altarpiece in it.
Book these before you get to Belgium.
Most of Belgium can wait until you are standing in the square with a cone of frites. These cannot — small rooms, fixed departures and a season six weeks long decide them for you.
- 01Belgian Chocolate Workshop in BrugesA workshop runs on a dozen aprons at a time, and the afternoon slots go first.
- 02From IEPER Private 4-hour Tour of the Ypres BattlefieldOne van, one departure, a full day of ground to cover. Summer dates go days ahead.
- 03From Ypres, The Christmas Truce to Passchendaele Ypres Based WW1 private tourThe markets run about six weeks from late November and nothing runs outside them.
- 04Bourgogne des Flandres Brewery and Distillery VisitA working brewhouse takes a set number of visitors per slot and stops when the slot is full.
By city — wherever you are sleeping
Brussels419 tours
Bruges223 tours
Ghent106 tours
Antwerp95 tours
Ypres20 tours
Wallonia & the Ardennes44 tours
Mechelen & Leuven11 tours- Every region →
By kind of day — beer, chocolate or cobbles?
The classic Belgium week, stop by stop.
Latest Belgium tour reviews.
All recent →
Private Transfer from Brussels to Amsterdam or AMS Schiphol Airport
Read our review →
Chocolate Truffle Workshop – Make and Take 25 Truffles
Read our review →
From Paris: Bruges and Ghent Private Day Trip in Flanders
Read our review →
Taxi Brussels Airport < - > London (1 to 8 Seaters)
Read our review →
Luxembourg and Dinant Private Day Tour from Brussels
Read our review →
Private 4-hour City Tour of Brussels with driver and tour guide w/ hotel pick up
Read our review →
Private transfer from Brussels Airport to Brussels city Business car
Read our review →
Brussels (EU Quarter) Scavenger Hunt and Sights Self-Guided Tour
Read our review →
From Amsterdam: Private Brussels Christmas Road Trip
Read our review →
Arrival Private Transfer from Brussels Airport BRU to Ghent City by Business Car
Read our review →
Brussels Challenges EVG, EVJF City Challenge as a team
Read our review →
Brussels Airport Transfer (BRU) <-> to or from Brussels (Sedan)
Read our review →