--- title: "Top 10 Things To Do in Belgium (City Guides) Wimup" description: "Browse Wimup's Top 10 guides across Belgium, Bruges, Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp and more cities, mapped and filmed. When to go, which language to open with, and where to start." url: https://wimup.com/country/belgium type: Country guide updated: 2026-10-06 publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com) --- # Top 10s across Belgium Medieval trading cities an hour apart by train, the beer culture UNESCO put on its heritage list, and a coastline of trams and grey shrimp. Belgium is **small, dense and easy to cross in a morning**. ## Quick answer Base yourself in **Brussels** or **Ghent** and the country comes to you: **Bruges**, **Antwerp**, **Leuven** and **Mechelen** are all inside an hour by train. Give **Bruges** a full day and stay the night, so you have it after the coaches leave. Then trade the medieval half for **Wallonia**: the **Meuse valley** at Dinant and Namur, and the **Ardennes** forest behind them. **May, June and September** are the windows worth booking. ## Quick facts - **Best months:** May · Jun · Sep - **Ideal length:** 4–7 days - **Budget per day:** €110–190 - **Language:** Dutch, French, German - **Getting around:** Trains, trams & bikes - **2** City guides - **11,825,551** People - **3** Regions Belgium travels well by rail: Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp and Bruges sit within an hour of each other, so one base covers most of a first trip. Flanders holds the medieval cities and the North Sea beaches, Wallonia the Ardennes forests and the Meuse valley, and the language switches from Dutch to French somewhere in between. ## 2 Belgium city guides 1. [Bruges](https://wimup.com/city/bruges.md): Europe · 10 picks 2. [Ghent](https://wimup.com/city/ghent.md): Europe · 10 picks ## Know before you go - **Population:** 11,825,551 - **Area:** 30,689 km² - **Density:** 385.3 / km² - **Capital:** Brussels - **Major cities:** Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi, Liège - **Tourism board:** Official site - **Currency:** Euro (€) Cards and contactless work almost everywhere. A handful of frituren and market stalls still take cash only, so keep a note or two on you. - **Language:** Dutch, French, German Dutch in Flanders, French in Wallonia, German in the eastern cantons, and Brussels officially bilingual. English is widely spoken in the cities and is the safe opener anywhere. - **Calling code:** +32 - **Power:** 230V · Type C & E - **Emergency:** 112 - **Visa:** Schengen area Belgium is in the Schengen area, so a short stay counts across the whole zone. The Immigration Office publishes the current rules for each passport. - **Getting around:** Trains, trams & bikes SNCB runs the intercity network and the main cities sit about an hour apart. Buy before boarding: a ticket bought from the conductor carries a surcharge. - **Tipping:** Not expected Service is included in the bill. Rounding up after a good meal is normal, and nothing beyond that is expected. - **Opening days:** Quiet Sundays Many shops close on Sunday and most museums close on Monday. Cafés keep going, and Sunday morning markets are the fixture worth planning around. - **Weather:** Mild and grey A maritime climate spreads the rain across the year with no wet season. A light waterproof beats an umbrella, which the wind off the coast will win against. - **Regions:** Flanders, Wallonia, Brussels Each region runs its own tourism board, and there is no national one. All three publish in English. - **Visit Flanders:** Official site - **Visit Wallonia:** Official site - **Visit Brussels:** Official site ## When to visit - **Jan** - **Feb** - **Mar** (good) - **Apr** (good) - **May** (best) - **Jun** (best) - **Jul** (peak) - **Aug** (peak) - **Sep** (best) - **Oct** (good) - **Nov** - **Dec** (good) ## Fun fact Beer culture in Belgium was inscribed on UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage in 2016, one of the few drinking traditions anywhere to be listed in its own right. ## Stereotypes, sorted out - **Myth:** Belgium is a stopover between Paris and Amsterdam **Reality:** It is the one country in Western Europe where four cities worth several days each sit inside an hour of one another. That is an argument for staying, not for passing through on the way to somewhere with a bigger reputation. - **Myth:** Everyone speaks French **Reality:** Dutch is the majority language and all of Flanders speaks it, including Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp. French belongs to Wallonia, German is official in the eastern cantons, and Brussels is officially bilingual. Open in English and nobody has to take a side. - **Myth:** It rains here constantly **Reality:** The maritime climate spreads grey drizzle thinly across the year and never delivers a monsoon. What it does mean is that no month is reliably dry, so pack a light waterproof and stop watching the forecast. - **Myth:** Belgian food is chocolate, waffles and beer **Reality:** Those are the exports. What people actually eat is carbonnade slow-cooked in beer, waterzooi, shrimp croquettes and a cone of fries from the neighbourhood frituur, none of which the gift shops sell. - **Myth:** Bruges is Belgium **Reality:** Bruges is the postcard and it earns the visit. But Ghent has the students, Antwerp the fashion and the port, Brussels the art nouveau and the museums, and Wallonia the forest and the river valleys. Bruges alone is one day of a country. - **Myth:** Fries are French **Reality:** The Belgian claim rests on the method: cut thick, fried twice, served in a paper cone with a sauce you pick. The frituur is a neighbourhood institution here, not a tourist stop, and saying otherwise is a reliable way to start a conversation. - Open in English. Guessing between Dutch and French and choosing wrong reads as a statement, and English lets everyone skip the question. - Buy fries at a frituur or friterie. Pick a sauce, eat standing at the counter, and do not call them French. - Beer arrives in its own glass and is ordered by name, never as just a beer. Let a Trappist warm up a little instead of drinking it cold. - Sunday is quiet and many shops stay shut. Most museums close on Monday, so put the flat, grey afternoons somewhere else in the week. - Greet with a handshake, or one kiss on the cheek among friends. Three is a French habit that does not travel here. - Buy the train ticket before boarding. Buying from the conductor costs more, and the app is faster than the station queue. - Do not fold Belgium into France or the Netherlands in conversation. The differences are the interesting part, and people will happily explain them. - Look right before stepping into a bike lane, especially in Flanders. The cycling infrastructure is real and it is in constant use. ## Famous Belgian faces - **René Magritte**: Surrealist painter, and the bowler hats and pipes that came with him - **Hergé**: Created Tintin in 1929, and with him the Belgian comic strip as an export - **Audrey Hepburn**: Born in Ixelles, Brussels, in 1929, and an Academy Award winner by 1954 - **Eddy Merckx**: Won the Tour de France five times, and most other races worth winning - **Jacques Brel**: Songwriter from Schaerbeek whose chansons outlived every translation - **Adolphe Sax**: Born in Dinant in 1814, and gave the saxophone his name - **Georges Lemaître**: Priest and physicist who first proposed an expanding universe - **Jan van Eyck**: Painted the Ghent Altarpiece, finished in 1432 and still in Saint Bavo's - **Peter Paul Rubens**: Ran the busiest studio in Baroque Europe, from a house in Antwerp - **Pieter Bruegel the Elder**: Painted peasants, proverbs and winter as though they mattered, because they did - **James Ensor**: Ostend painter of masks and crowds, decades ahead of the century he died in - **Victor Horta**: Art nouveau architect. Four of his Brussels town houses are UNESCO listed - **Dries Van Noten**: Antwerp Six designer who put Belgian fashion on the Paris schedule - **Martin Margiela**: Antwerp-trained designer who built a house on anonymity and deconstruction - **Stromae**: Brussels songwriter who took French-language pop worldwide - **Toots Thielemans**: Made the harmonica a jazz instrument, and whistled the rest - **Django Reinhardt**: Born in Liberchies in 1910, and rewrote the guitar with two working fingers - **Kim Clijsters**: Four-time Grand Slam singles champion, and world number one twice over - **Justine Henin**: Seven Grand Slam singles titles, four of them at Roland-Garros - **Jacky Ickx**: Won Le Mans six times, and never lost the argument about Spa in the rain - **Andreas Vesalius**: Brussels-born anatomist whose 1543 atlas reset how medicine looks at the body - **Gerardus Mercator**: Born in Rupelmonde in 1512, and drew the projection every wall map still argues about - **Georges Simenon**: Liège novelist who wrote Maigret, and a few hundred books besides - **Amélie Nothomb**: Publishes a novel a year, and has done since 1992 - **The Dardenne brothers**: Two Palmes d'Or from Liège, filmed at walking pace on real streets - **Jean-Claude Van Damme**: The Muscles from Brussels, and a second act as his own best joke ## Must-try Belgian food - **Frites**: Cut thick, fried twice, served in a paper cone from a frituur with a sauce you choose. - **Moules-frites**: A black pot of mussels steamed with white wine or celery, and a second bowl of fries. - **Carbonnade flamande**: Beef braised slowly in dark beer with a slice of mustarded bread stirred through it. - **Chicon au gratin**: Endive rolled in ham, baked under béchamel and cheese. Winter cooking, mostly at home. - **Stoemp**: Potatoes mashed with whatever vegetable is in season, served under a sausage. - **Filet américain**: Raw minced beef with capers and mayonnaise, eaten with fries. Not a burger. - **Vol-au-vent**: Chicken and meatballs in a cream sauce, inside puff pastry. Every brasserie has one. - **Waterzooi**: A Ghent stew of chicken or fish in a broth thickened with cream and egg yolk. - **Paling in 't groen**: Eel poached in a green sauce of sorrel, chervil and whatever else the herb garden gave. - **Mattentaart**: Geraardsbergen's curd tart, with EU protected designation and a short shelf life. - **Boulets à la liégeoise**: Meatballs in a dark sauce sweetened with sirop de Liège. The dish Liège argues about most. - **Tarte al d'jote**: A Nivelles tart of chard and strong local cheese, eaten hot and protected by name. - **Salade liégeoise**: Green beans, potatoes and bacon, dressed with vinegar while everything is still warm. - **Couque de Dinant**: Honey and flour pressed into carved wooden moulds and baked hard. Suck it, do not bite it. - **Garnaalkroketten**: Grey shrimp croquettes with fried parsley. The benchmark starter on the coast and off it. - **Noordzeegarnalen**: Tiny North Sea grey shrimp, hand-peeled. Worth the price when peeled that morning. - **Tomate crevette**: A hollowed tomato packed with grey shrimp and mayonnaise. A brasserie fixture all summer. - **Sole from the Flemish coast**: Landed at Ostend and Zeebrugge, cooked in butter, and left alone otherwise. - **Brussels waffle**: Rectangular, light, crisp, and dusted with sugar. The one eaten with a fork. - **Liège waffle**: Denser dough studded with pearl sugar that caramelises on the iron. The one eaten walking. - **Speculoos**: Spiced biscuit pressed with a figure, tied to Saint Nicholas and sold all year regardless. - **Cuberdon**: The Ghent nose: a cone of hard raspberry shell around a syrup centre that will not keep. - **Pralines**: The filled chocolate shell, invented in Brussels in 1912 and still the city's own. - **Trappist ale**: Brewed inside monastery walls under the abbey's own supervision. Order it cool, not cold. - **Gueuze**: Young and old lambic blended and refermented in the bottle. Dry, sour, close to cider. - **Kriek**: Lambic steeped with sour cherries. The traditional ones are tart, and not sweet. - **Jenever**: The juniper spirit gin descends from, drunk in a small glass filled to the rim. ## FAQs ### How many days do you need in Belgium? Four to five days covers Brussels, Bruges and Ghent without rushing any of them. A week adds Antwerp and either the coast or the Ardennes. Distances are short enough that one base and a rail pass beats moving hotels every night. ### Bruges or Ghent? Bruges is the better preserved medieval set piece, and it is busy by mid-morning. Ghent has the same canals with a student city attached, so it stays open later and feels less curated. They sit about half an hour apart by train, which makes the honest answer both. ### Which language do you speak where? Dutch in Flanders (Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Leuven), French in Wallonia (Liège, Namur, Mons), German in the eastern cantons, and both Dutch and French in Brussels. English is widely spoken and nobody minds you opening with it. Guessing wrong reads as a statement, so do not guess. ### Do you need a car in Belgium? Not for the cities. The rail network is dense, the main cities are about an hour apart, and parking inside the historic centres is deliberately difficult. A car earns its place in the Ardennes and on the smaller Meuse valley roads, where bus services thin out. ### When is the best time to visit Belgium? May, June and September. Long days, settled weather, and the high-summer crowds either not yet arrived or gone home. December is the other case for coming, for the Christmas markets in Brussels, Bruges and Ghent, in exchange for short and cold days. ## Related countries - [Italy](https://wimup.com/country/italy.md) - [France](https://wimup.com/country/france.md) - [All of Europe](https://wimup.com/europe) Part of [Europe](https://wimup.com/europe.md) ## Sources - [Tourism board](https://www.belgium.be/en/about_belgium/tourism?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Visa](https://dofi.ibz.be/en/themes/third-country-nationals/short-stay?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Getting around](https://www.belgiantrain.be/en?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Visit Flanders](https://www.visitflanders.com/en?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Visit Wallonia](https://visitwallonia.com/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Visit Brussels](https://visit.brussels/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.