Quick Route Munich to Brussels
 

I/m trying to plan a trip for my family -- son & wife, 4 children and myself --- for next April. The only way I can figure to get from Munich to Brussels is train to Koln and then Thalys to Brussels. That would take 7 hrs. total. Any other ideas? Thanks.

That 7-hour trip you mentioned includes a routing over the high-speed link between Frankfurt and Cologne so I suspect you are correct that there is no faster rail connection. And no "budget" airlines listed between Munich and Brussels, either. Wish i could offer more but will top this for you as someone else may offer a faster option.

The trip may take even longer than 7 hours. I've taken many trains from Germany to Brussels, and more than half have run late. If the time between trains at Koln is less than 15 minutes you run a fairly good chance of not making the connection. We have missed a few trains in Koln that had short connections (as suggested by the highly optimistic DB web site).
We don't fly the budget airlines (Ryanair, etc.), but one possibility is to rent a car and drive to the airport nearest to Munich served by one of those airlines and fly into Brussels or Charleroi.
BTilke (Brussels)

I puzzled over this one for longer than I should have yesterday, before I gave up and chose not to post a discouraging answer. Not only no cheap air service, BRU-MUC, essentially no cheap service from Brussels (BRU or Charleroi) to ANYwhere in Germany. And no obvious intermediary city to do a double connection. Dublin was a possibility, but the times are not good.

I don't know your overall itinerary and how/where this segment fits in, but I wonder if you can make a nice meander across Germany by car. Once you get to Aachen, the train trip to Brussels is short and easy.

Best wishes,

Rex

Both German Wings and DBA are low cost airlines flying Munich / Koln. Flight is 1 hr 10 min. From Koln (which in fact is Koln/Bonn) you can either take the train (about 3 hrs from the airport to Brussels Midi, with 1 change in Koln Hauptbahnhof AND reservation required!!) or drive, which will take you about 2 hrs.

http://www8.germanwings.com
http://www.flydba.com

Thank you all for your thoughtful responses!! We will look at our options and let you know what we find. As we will have a car, which we were going to return in Munich, we might just drive to Cologne. Thanks so much.

Driving to Cologne, or to Brussels, isn't bad at all. The German motorways are in good condition and, if there are not too much road works going on, you could do the 600 km traject Munich/Koln in about 6 hours.
Munich/Brussels would be 730 km (7,5 hrs). About the same amount of time that you would need to train/train or fly/train.

Driving to Brussels would make sense IF you're not going to get hit with a huge fee for dropping the car off in another country.
And if you do decide to drive to Brussels, a couple of things to keep in mind, like the car rental agency hours. There are many agencies in Brussels that aren't open on Sundays and open only limited hours (9 to noon) on Saturdays (example: the Avis branch in the Ixelles neighborhood). Next, try to arrange drop off at the airport if possible and then take a cab or airport local train in to the city. The end of a long drive is NOT the time to negotiate the mass of roadway confusion and bad driving that is Brussels (as I write this, my husband is sitting in a massive traffic jam just outside of Brussels). The last place to you want to try and find at the end of a long, tiring day of driving is the Gare du Midi (and general note for anyone planning to drive to the Gare du Midi on a Sunday morning, the large street market held then makes getting around the area by car a challenge).
Re trains, remember the Thalys is not the only train serving Koln/Brussels. There is also the ICE train (which I prefer to the Thalys) and EC trains.

I suppose by this time we have done this thing to death but I, for one, would certainly not recommend renting a car JUST to do this trip and nothing else in between. OK, so it takes you 7 hours or so by train but at least it will be a relaxed 7 hours..no navigating, no stress, no work of driving, etc. But whatever you do, have a GREAT trip.

We plan on picking up the car on our arrival in Frankfurt; touring for 8 days or so in bavaria and quick trip to salzburg; back to munich to visit relatives. Think from there our best bet is to drive to Koln and take train to Brussels.
Thanks all.