We are traveling to Europe for the first time, leaving next week. We are staying in Provence and Paris with a week in each. Since we are flying in and out of Brussels, I thought a two day trip to Brugge would be fun at the end of our week in Paris. I booked our PREM fares some time ago, thanks to info posted on Fodors and we are staying in Brugge for 2 nights, June 6 and June 7. However, I was trying to purchase online tickets for four of us from Lille to Brugge on the Belgian railways site and having a lot of trouble. I must be doing something wrong. I am able to choose an itinerary based on our arrival in Lille Flanders at 13:03 on June 6 and want to catch the 14:08, (IC19725) arriving at Courtrai station at 14:38, and transferring to another train (IC835) at 14:48, arriving in Brugge at 15:27. However, when I try to purchase this itinerary with an ordinary ticket (one-way)) it says Lille Flanders is an incorrect point of departure for this ticket purchase. Any help with what I'm doing wrong would be helpful. This is our first trip to Europe, leaving next week and I am stressing out on this aspect of our travel plans.

Do you mean Lille, FRANCE? There is a Lille in Belgium, but it is tiny and on the wrong side for you to be travelling to.

If that is what you mean, you need to buy the ticket from the French SNCF, not the Belgian railways.

We have done this trip several times. Just buy your Lille-Brugge tickets when you get to France, either in Provence or Paris. This will be a local train, no need for reservation.

I would buy the ticket at Lille. These trains have no seat reservations and there's no reason to buy in advance. They run every hour so, if you miss one, or decide to have lunch in Lille, you just catch a later one.
The station in Lille is called Lille Flandres and is in the city centre, with a choice of bars, cafés and restaurants outside the station entrance.
You change trains at Kortrijk (Courtrai in French) where the train from Lille and the one to Brugge are normally on opposite sides of the same platform.

Hi B,

Buy your ticket from Lille Flandres to Bruges at www.voyages-sncf.com.

You can buy the 14.6E ticket for the 13:05 - they usually hold that train if the connecting TGV is a little late.

The fare of 14.60 euros is the standard fare, available at any time from the station ticket office and valid on any train. The SNCF computer system is weird and will sometimes try to route you via Gent ("Gand" in French). The quickest route is on the hourly trains via Kortrijk which cost 14.60 euros whichever time or date you travel, and wherever you buy the ticket.

Sallygirl, the train station in Lille is called Lille Flandres (as opposed to Lille Europe, which is nearby). I thin that's what the op is referring to.

Are you using the international journey planner?

I do agree with the other posters though... just buy the ticket at Lille. No reason to do it in advance.

yes why be frustrated needlessly by voyages-sncf.com to buy a ticket at the same price you'd buy it for in any French train station? people have reported jumping out of windows trying to make voyages-sncf.com actually work.

Bruges is near Lille (Rijsel in Flemish!) so it is just a local train, or two local trains with a connection. No booking ahead and no discounts for booking early.

Just buy your train ticket to Rijsel when you are in Bruges. I say 'Rijsel' because they absolutely hate using any French word in Bruges except with French tourists. Belgian Walloon tourists have to pretend they are French to get the people of Bruges to speak French to them.

I first thought when i went to Bruges long ago that i would be able to use my (limited) French there but like Jack says no one wanted to hear French

one older lady told me in the very good English many seem to speak that it stemmed from the days of French or really Walloon, the French part of Belgium, hegemony over the Flemish or Dutch speaking part that dated back to the country's birth in the 1800s - apparently the Walloons were in control and imposed French on all schools, even those in the Flemish area and this still wrankles them and i think is part of the antipathy of Flems to Walloons that has threatened to split the country

They often say the only Belgian is the king - the rest very polarized with Frites and Beer their only commonality it seems

Ironically for long the Walloon south was the most prosperous part of Belgian - due to the intense mining and manufacturing sectors there but this has faded and Walloonia is rather depressed economically now whilst the Flemish are far the more prosperous part of the country now.

a very interesting country (and i do not purport to know if i have all exactly right but am relaying what i've been told by some Belgians)

And perhaps the fact that they don't want to speak French in Bruges is because they, at least younger generation, speak French and no longer study it i'm told - preferring English as a second language

of course should have been the younger generation of Flems don't speak French and no longer study it

In Bruges, the largest number of tourists come from France, so of course everybody in the tourist industry speaks French. They have absolutely nothing against speaking French to the French, Swiss, Québecois, West Africans or whatever, but they do not want to speak French to the Walloons or to anybody who speaks English or German better than French. And that's why the Walloon tourists try to pass themselves off as French.

Thanks so much for your suggestions and I can relax a bit! We are arriving in Lille Flanderes and I will pick up our tickets when we get there as we have almost an hour before the train to Brugge. And, it's nice to know there are cafes, etc. close if we choose to catch a later train.

My ex-wife, French, says that Belgians (walloons) speak French that sounds like some kind of crude country dialect

By the way, if you find yourself in Lille Europe and you need to be in Lille Flanders (or visa versa), the two train stations are only 100 (or so) meters away from each other.

By the way, we found the people of Bruges to be very friendly. We find ourselves returning to Bruges for a day or two or six this month.

More like 300 meters across a pedestrian plaza. No big deal. There is also a gigantic shopping mall on top of it all.

Begs the question why they did not build the Lille europa station right adjacent to the older Flandres station for a really seamless connection - but maybe there is relatively few folks going from one station to the other?

I think they're as close together as they could possibly get them. Don't forget that TGV tracks are not ordinary train tracks, so to get the Eurostar going through Lille without tearing down half the town must have been pretty tricky. They did a pretty good job.

Well yes and unlike most new TGV stations at least they are a short stroll apart - but it just seems that there is little in between but that modern shopping centre.

But it's better than Avignon, Aix, Nancy, Metz, etc. and their new TGV stations a few miles out of town - several miles in some cases, like Reims