London to Belgium ...by boat?
 

Is Eurostar the only option for traveling from London to Bruges? I took a boat a long while back and I am wonder if that is still an option. I am traveling Sat. Sept. 16 and was hoping to travel eariler than the eurostar trains allow.

There was a ferry that connected Dover with Ostend, then on by connecting rail to Brussels. But I do not know if this ferry/rail service still runs.

Eurostar trains start around 6am - if speed is your criteria the boat would take about 4 hours if there were any to Belgium anymore - believe there are not. Quickest way to Bruges is to take Eurostar to Lille then train from there to Bruges. Cheapest way is to take Eurostar to Brussels (just a few dollars more than Lille) and then used the ABS (All Belgian Stations) fare that comes with all Eurostar tickets allowing you free transfer with 24 hours on any train to Bruges - saving perhaps $20 over Lille route but about an hour longer. If going one-way fares to Brussels/Bruges via ABS start at around $89 but to get these tickets you must usually book far in advance. RailEurope is the major supplier in the U.S. - i always recommend BETS (800-441-2387), a RE agent for their superb service in my experience and won't charge RE's $15 mailing fee for orders under $200. You can check fares in pounds at www.eurostar.co.uk or www.eurostar.com - sometimes can be cheaper than available ones in U.S. so always compare.

You could take the ferry from Dover to Calais, then the train to Brugge. It would be a very long journey though! The boat trip takes about 1 hr 20 min., the train between 2 hrs 20 min. and 5 hrs.!

Here's an interactive map showing all the ferry routes:

http://www.directferries.co.uk/routes.htm

1. Wow!!!!! 2 posters - one of them certainly American - able to spell <b>Bruges </b> properly. Is this a record? Could it possibly mean people will start getting Cologne, Milan, Naples and Thessalonica right?

2. There is a ferry from Ramsgate to Ostend (www.transeuropaferries.co.uk)

Transeuropa runs ferries from Ramsgate to Oostende, but they don't carry foot passengers. There are no other ferry services from southern England to Belgium. Even when there were ferries to Belgium, the journey took a lot longer than the journey by Eurostar.

Thanks to all for your replies. They are helpful. I looked at investigating going into Lille instead of Brussels.

Author: MyriamC ([email protected])
Date: 08/31/2006, 12:17 pm
You could take the ferry from Dover to Calais, then the train to Brugge.

Flanneruk: Now do you fault Myriam for using Brugge? After all she's i believe a Flemish Belgian who has always used Brugge, the town name in local parlance or should she do like Rheims and use the English spelling? I think not.
That English language abitrators like yourself chose to use the French spelling for Bruges means little but a remnant of the time French culture ruled over Flemish Belgium and imposed their language on them - even mandating French be taught in schools i believe. Otherwise it would never have been called Bruges, perhaps.
Much ado about nuthing!

Not to mention more than a tad hypocritical from someone who spells Basel as Basle.

And flanneruk - in American English it's Reims - why should i use a Britism Rheims - and Edinburgh - here it's pronounced Edin-burg not Edinburl - should we say Edin-burl - me i do but i find it a bit presumptive to do so.
News Flash: The sun has long set on the British Empire - it now basically rises in Dover and sets in Blackpool. Personally i like using the local spelling or pronuciation - yes Koln over Cologne, Antwerpen over Antwerp and Brugge over Bruges -especially when in the local country.

AnnaLeonard - I took the ferry from Dover to Ostende in September many years ago and it was a very rough ride in contrast to a crossing from Calais to Dover on a sunny Sunday in July.

BTilke - The British version for Basel is indeed &quot;Basle&quot;. That spelling is perfectly correct. Basel is also spelled &quot;B&acirc;le&quot; in French and &quot;Basilea&quot; in Italien :-)

The official name the City of Bruges has has in English is Bruges. That's what it says on the city's web site: that's how Brugeois refer to their city when speaking English.

Europeans who speak English, speak English. Only racist stereotypes of Italians say &quot;I a fromma Roma&quot;: only the crudest jokes about Germans have them saying &quot;I komm from Koln, ja?&quot;

In Bale with the tent above the a of course means an s has been omitted so the French Basle corresponds with the British Basle - i'm picking up a trend here - Brits have taken French spellings for their own i guess.

The one and only official name of the city of Brugge is <b>BRUGGE</b>. It's in the Flemish speaking part of Belgium.

Actually, Waggis, the English name for the airport that serves Basel is Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg. It is NOT Basle Mulhouse Freiburg in English, as FlUK called it.
http://www.euroairport.com/EN/accueil.php
The official English language web site for Basel is
http://www.basel.ch/en/basel/home
The OLD British spelling of Basel was Basle, but the move is now to use Basel following the city's successful petition to have the official English spelling changed to the German one for purposes of standardization (pushed by bankers, who do carry some influence in Switzerland):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel
http://odge.info/english-german/Basl...ial+form).html

If you're going to do German spellings, you must master the umlaut. Either

<b>K&ouml;ln</b>

or

<b>Koeln</b>

is acceptable; Koln is not.

perhaps this link will work better:
http://odge.info/index.php?ebene=Search&amp;kw=basle

Place names are proper nouns like the names of people which are not translated. Nobody refers to the Italian composer Mr Green (Verdi) or the former German chancellor Mr Cabbage (Kohl). In the days when most people only read about foreign places in books, Anglicised versions of place names were common, but, travellers to foreign places need to know the names which will appear on road signs, railway timetables, etc. Visitors to Italy, for example, need to know that to get to &quot;Florence&quot;, they need to catch a train to Firenze.

...except Victor Borge. &quot;Joe Green&quot; was one of his favorite composers of opera. ;)