Belgium Family Travel Guide

Open in the right language. Bonjour in Brussels and Wallonia, goedendag in Flanders. Opening in French in Ghent or Bruges lands badly. If you are unsure, say hello in English. That is neutral and nobody minds.

Beer is treated like wine. Each one has its own glass and the bartender will care about that. Do not order a pint of lager in a Trappist cafe and expect enthusiasm. Ask what they recommend instead.

Lunch is a real stop. Kitchens close, often from two until six or seven. If you turn up at half four hungry with kids, you are eating fries from a window, which is not the worst outcome here.

Do not call it France, ever. Or the Netherlands. Belgians are funny and self deprecating about their own country and will happily insult it in front of you. That is theirs to do, not yours.

Rounding up is enough. Service is included. Leaving five to ten percent for a good sit down meal is generous and normal. Nobody is doing twenty here.

Euros, and cheaper than its neighbors. A family room runs roughly 120 to 190 euros a night in Ghent or Bruges, more in central Brussels during EU summit weeks. Food is noticeably cheaper than Amsterdam.

Cards work almost everywhere but frietkots, market stalls and some small cafes are cash only or have a card minimum. Carry twenty euros in coins and small notes.

Toilets cost fifty cents to a euro including in some train stations and fast food places. There is often a person sitting at the door with a saucer. Have coins.

Brussels parking is punishing. We paid seven euros for a three hour visit in 2010 and it has not got cheaper. Use a Park and Ride on the metro line and take the train in.

Almost nothing needs booking weeks ahead. This is one of the real pleasures of Belgium after the Netherlands. The exception is the Ghent Altarpiece viewing slots and the Christmas market weekends.

Dogs are welcome nearly everywhere. Poppy came on the canal boat in Ghent, sat in cafes and rode the trains. Nobody asked a single question.

One day. Do not do Brussels. Do Ghent or Bruges instead, straight from Brussels Midi, and be back on a train by evening. One day in Brussels gets you the Grand Place and a line for a small statue.

Three days. The right answer for most families. Base in Ghent. Bruges as a half day, Brussels as a half day, one full day in Ghent itself. Everything is under an hour apart.

Five days. Add Antwerp for the station, the zoo and the diamond quarter, and either Ypres and the Flanders battlefields or Dinant and the Ardennes. Those two pull in opposite directions, so pick one.

Bolt it on. The best way to do Belgium is inside a bigger trip. Amsterdam to Antwerp is an hour. Brussels to Paris is an hour and a half. That is what we did in March and it barely felt like moving.

Ghent. Ours. The best city in Belgium and the one nobody plans for. Gravensteen castle sits in the middle of town with a moat and a dungeon and it costs about thirteen euros. The boat trip on the Leie is forty minutes and the dog came with us. Students everywhere, so it is cheap and it is awake at night.

Brussels. Ours. Give it a half day and give that half day to the Grand Place, which really is stunning. Manneken Pis is a foot tall and you will laugh at yourself for walking to it. Go anyway, it is two minutes away, and he is usually dressed in something ridiculous.

Antwerp. Ours. The central station is the reason to stop. Four levels of platforms under a stone and glass dome that people call the railway cathedral, and it is free to walk through. The zoo is next door and it is one of the oldest in the world.

Bruges. Ours. Beautiful, and I will not pretend otherwise. Also completely overrun between about eleven and four when the day trip coaches and the cruise passengers from Zeebrugge arrive. Stay the night or come in the morning. The Church of Our Lady holds a Michelangelo, which almost nobody expects.

Waterloo. Ours. Twenty minutes south of Brussels. A very flat field, a very large artificial hill with two hundred and twenty six steps, and a good underground museum. Worth it if anyone in your family cares about history. Boring if nobody does.

Leuven. Twenty minutes from Brussels and half an hour from the airport. A university town since 1425 with a town hall covered in three hundred statues. Great first or last stop if you are flying in or out of Zaventem.

Ypres and Flanders Fields. The Last Post has been sounded under the Menin Gate every single evening since 1928, except during the German occupation. It is free and it takes five minutes and it is the most affecting thing in the country. Best for kids over about eleven.

Dinant and the Ardennes. The other Belgium. A town wedged between a cliff and the Meuse, the birthplace of the saxophone, and then forest, caves and kayaking rivers south of it. You want a car and two nights minimum.

Kids under twelve ride the trains free. Up to four children with each paying adult. For a family of five moving between cities every day, that is the difference between Belgium being cheap and Belgium being expensive.

Gravensteen is the win. A real moated castle in the middle of a real city, with a funny audio guide the kids will actually listen to. Around an hour and a half and it converts the child who is tired of churches.

Comic strips are a national art form. Tintin and the Smurfs are Belgian. Brussels has a comic book museum and a walking route of enormous painted murals on the sides of buildings, and it is free.

Build in a chocolate workshop. An hour, usually 30 to 45 euros a child, and they make and keep their own bar. It is the single easiest rainy afternoon fix in the country.

Distances are tiny, so let them be bored slowly. Nothing is more than an hour away. Skip the third church. Sit on a square, order fries, and let the day go.

Manneken Pis is tiny. A foot tall, behind railings, on an ordinary corner. Everyone is briefly disappointed and then everyone takes the photo. He has a wardrobe of about a thousand costumes and a museum for them.

Fries are Belgian, not French. They will tell you. There is a national museum of fries in Bruges and it is not a joke. The good ones come from a frietkot, a shack, not a restaurant.

Brussels is international. Around a third of the population was born abroad. It does not feel like a small European capital, it feels like a working city that happens to run a continent.

The country runs on compromise. Two languages, two governments, one king, and a period in 2010 and 2011 when it went 541 days without a federal government and nothing much happened. Belgians find this funny.

Bruges. Three nights. Canals, a boat ride, the bell tower, waffles on every corner. Small enough for a seven year old to learn the way back to the hotel.

Ghent. Half an hour away and half as busy. The castle with real armor to try on, a river the kids can kayak, better food than Bruges.

Brussels for a day. The Grand Place, the comic strip walls, the Atomium. Fly in and out here, sleep somewhere smaller.