It's been a few years, and I'm a little confused by the websites. If we are traveling by train from Amsterdam to Brugge, how easy is it to do a stopover (for lunch and a walk) in Brussels? If we are taking the Thalys from Amsterdam, does it stop at Central or do we have to go to Midi as the site seems to suggest? Would we just book our Thalys ticket and pick up a Brussels to Brugge ticket when we get there (I believe there are trains every half hour and I can't imagine a problem booking when traveling).
An alternate is to do the stopover between Brugge and Paris, again, probably traveling by Thalys. But same question remains. All I see for a stop on the Thalys site is Midi, but it seems in the past, it stopped at Central. No?
Meanwhile, can I book Thalys tickets on line? It seems I used to not be able to, but it looks like I now can, although I haven't pursued it to the end of printing tickets, etc.

Or maybe I should be asking this another way. If we went to Brussels Midi, how close, cheap, and easy is to take a taxi to Grand Place for a couple hours and then go back there to continue the trip?

According to Google maps, it's only 1.9 km from the train station to the Grand-Place, and from the same map, it looks like it would be easy to find a métro/streetcar between the two locations.

An alternative to the Grand-Place would be the Victor Horta museum.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca/...ith/4256354538

The Thalys stops only at Midi.
Taxi should cost less than €10. Grand Place and surrounding streets are pedestrian zone, so expect to get dropped off 100-200 meters away from the Grand Place.
Or follow signs to metro 3/4 and take any northbound (dir. Gare du Nord) train for 3 stops to "Bourse/Beurs" and walk 5mins to Grand Place. Costs €1.80 pP.

I could be wrong, but I believe that w/a Thalys ticket, you can ride the train from Midi to Central for free. There are trains every few minutes that run between the 2 stations. [fwiw, I've taken the train between the 2 stations a number of times, and I never had my ticket checked. The ride takes < 5 minutes.]

Also, if you're taking the Thalys, you can purchase an ABS ticket (Any Belgian Station). http://www.thalys.com/fr/en/frequent...elgian-station That should get you to your destination (Brugge) without buying an additional ticket. Based on what it says on the page I linked to, I believe you can have a stopover in Brussels. It's also valid on the reverse journey (Brugge -> Paris)

Here's the Belgian rail website version of ABS
http://www.b-europe.co.uk/Travel/Tra...About%20Thalys

Patrick,

If you end up near the Grand Place and Central Station (they ARE very close to one another), then I want to suggest this place:

http://alamortsubite.com/

Nothing spectacular on the food side - just very good pub fare, the beer/drink menu is medium sized but very high quality and the overall ambiance is just wonderful. A great, casual, inexpensive option before or after you've strolled around the Grand Place

Otherwise... a lunch ON the Grand Place is always nice for people watching/meeting (and is also, of course, gorgeous). The cafes/restaurants there are what you would expect in such a prime, touristy location: so-so and overpriced, but that wouldn't necessarily stop me if I only had a few hours in the city.

On the Grand Place, Le Roy has pretty good food and decent prices for a restaurant on a major square like that.

Oh, yes, you can most definitely purchase Thalys tickets online. If you book way in advance, you may be able to get discounted tickets. A few years ago, I purchased Thalys tickets from Paris to Bruges for 25 euro per person.

A Taxi from Midi to my Hotel near the Grand Place cost me 12 Euros in March this year. If you spend some time around the Place you can catch the train from Central station to Brugge.

yk and chiarachiara's advices combined offer a new solution to the problem.

Technically, a Thalys ticket to Brugge (via the "any Belgium station" option) will allow a stopover in Brussels for up to 2 days.

Technically, taking any Northbound IC/IR/CR/L train from Bruxelles-Midi to -Central will be considered backtracking, which should not be allowed.

In real life, I've never been checked for a ticket between the downtown Brussels stations, but:

IF there is a conductor passing thru the cars, you can ask for a "Brussels Zone" ticket for €1.60. You can only buy it on the train, so don't line up at the ticket windows at Bruxelles-Midi:
http://www.b-rail.be/nat/E/tarifs/ti...cket/index.php
(scroll down to para on "Standard Brussels Zone Ticket")
This ticket is also a day pass for all the railways in the city of Brussels, but NOT for subways, trams, buses.

Leave your luggage at Bruxelles-Central (lockers available according to Belgian Rail website)

After you're done exploring the historic city center, you can catch the train to Brugge right at Bruxelles-Central. No change at Midi necessary.

Well, I went ahead and booked our Thalys tickets, but only from Amsterdam to Brussels Midi, and then a separate one from Brussels Midi to Paris. Got super advance purchase fares at good times for us. But unless I was doing something wrong, the only way it seemed to allow me to do a ticket from Brugge to Paris utilizing Thalys at the discount was leaving Brugge at something like 6 in the morning. I know the tickets from Brugge to Brussels are cheap, frequent, and easy, so we'll just do those there.

I know the Thalys used to stop at both Central and then Midi, but it doesn't show that it still does that. So I guess we'll just go to Midi, put our luggage in a locker there and take a taxi to and from Grand Place. If it does make a stop at Central, then we'll get off there and get our tickets from there to Brugge.

Peter, a true chocoholic, has never been to Belgium, and the stop is really mostly a chance for him to sit, have lunch, perhaps waffles with chocolate and hot chocolate (I have a great memory of doing that very thing), and then heading on to Brugge. I can't imagine a better place for that and the people watching than Grand Place.

Patrick, technically, there is only 1 daily train that goes "direct" from Bruges to Paris - it stops in Brussels but the train continues on, so the passenger does not need to change trains in Brussels.

As I said, it's super easy to catch a connecting train at Midi to Central; no need for a taxi from Midi.

Thalys trains are too long to stop at Gare Centraal and only stop at Midi I believe and not even Gare du Nord last time I took one.

does the ABS fare come with deep discounted tickets like the 25 euro one yk got?

The quickest route amsterdam to Bruges is of course via a change in Antwerp and IMO I'd rather do lunch and spend a few hours in Antwerp anytime over Brussels - the Centraal train station - redolent of a grand Grand Central station in NYC - a Beaux-Arts frenzy on the outside is smack in the heart of this very very unique and old historic port town.

The ABS fare I believe needs no ticket just your Thalys ticket - I though you had to pay a little extra for the ABS fare or is it free with all types of Thalys tickets? thanks

I guess we each have our own likes and dislikes. I've been to Brussels twice and Antwerp only once, but in picking a place to sit and have lunch and marvel at the architecture, the scene, and the general ambiance, I chose Grand Place in Brussels over Antwerp and feel confident in doing so for us. Although I do remember being impressed with the Antwerp train station.

I ended up paying 45 euro each for comfort 2 Brussels to Paris ad 66 each for Comfort one (a super special) from Amsterdam to Brussels. It didn't seem "worth it" to try to struggle to include the fares to and from Brugge with the Thalys tickets as the website wasn't very user friendly in that regard, and it seemed to void the super priced options when adding in Brugge-- and we didn't want to do a 6 AM train from Brugge anyway! This is for the end of August on both trains.

1. The Thalys passes non-stop through Brussels Noord and Brussels Central and stops at Brussels Midi.

2. Brussels Midi is a 25 minute walk from the Grande Place, but as others have said you can hop on a frequent local train back to Brussels central. Just look for the next local or inter-regional departures on the big departures board and look on the platform indicator at the foot of each escalator to see if they stop at Brussels central, a bit hit and miss but there you go. Brussels Central is a 3 minute walk from the Grande Place. Your Thalys ticket to Brussels will cover you for this short hop, though you won't have your ticket checked anyway in central Brussels!

3. If you select Bruges to Paris at www.thalys.com, you'll only see the one direct daily Thalys train. You should select 'Brussels ABS' as your starting station and 'Paris' as destination, as this means 'Thalys from Brussels to Paris with an add-on journey from Any Belgian Station'. It's cheaper than buying separate Bruges-Brussels and Brussels-Paris tickets, it's priced as a fixed-price add-on on top of whatever the available Brussels-Paris Thalys price is.

4. If you buy a ticket Brussels ABS to Paris at www.thalys.com you can use ANY domestic train from Bruges to Brussels in the 24 hours preceding your Thalys departure, no need for any reservation, you just hop on and show your Brussels ABS to Paris ticket.

Man-in-seat, that was REALLY clear and I wish I had seen it before I booked. I just couldn't figure out that alternate of using ABS instead of Brugge to get other times besides the early morning one. But when I do it now, the lowest price for MY train is 72 euros from Brugge instead of the 45 euros we're paying from Brussels. I suspect that may be because the lower fares are now sold out, as I do see an earlier trip from Brugge to Paris that is 50 euro, presumably 5 euro more than the 45 I paid not including Brugge. So I don't now what it costs just to buy a ticket between Brugge and Brussels, but I guess it will cost me more than that 5 euro if I had booked it that way yesterday. In any case, I doubt it would be 27 euros -- the difference it now costs for the same train we are booked on -- to include Brugge.

The fairly flat fare way between Bruges and Paris goes via Lille-flandres - take an IC or regional train Bruges to Lille and change to TGV to Paris-Nord - about 2.5 hours all told same as via Brussels and you need not deal with Byzantine fare structure of Thalys trains - you can even get a discount online at www.voyages-sncf.com for the Lille to Paris TGV although full fare is not that high compared to full fare on Thalys trains.

I don't think I'd pay full fare on Thalys. But are you saying it would be cheaper than 45 euro to take an IC and TGV changing at Lille instead of the direct Thalys? Hard to imagine.

<i>
PalenQ on Jul 27, 11 at 1:14pm
The quickest route amsterdam to Bruges is of course via a change in Antwerp and IMO I'd rather do lunch and spend a few hours in Antwerp anytime over Brussels - the Centraal train station - redolent of a grand Grand Central station in NYC - a Beaux-Arts frenzy on the outside is smack in the heart of this very very unique and old historic port town.</i>

Ditto, ditto, ditto.

The Steen Maritime Museum in Antwerp is fascinating. The Grote Markt is beautiful. The mussels and beer are at least as good as Brussels. And the train station is really spectacular. The new platforms are all hidden from the front so the historic features remain. You can see the main hall at http://tinyurl.com/cr935m. That stairwell is one of my favorites in all of Europe.

NeoPat - no it would not be cheaper than 45 euros and I did not note that you had a 45 euro fare from Bruges via Brussels via Thalys to Paris - but for someone who does not want to mess around with securing the limited in numb er cheaper tickets on the Thalys the Bruges-Lille-Paris option is good as they could just buy the tickets in Bruges and not pay nearly what a full fare thalys ticket would cost I believe. But yes if you can get the discounted Thalys ticket and do not want flexbility to chose what train when there yes that would be the best option.