BELGIUM · EUROPE
Canals, belfries, chocolate and beer.
Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels, plus the chocolate shops, the beer cafes, the canal cruises and the fields of Flanders. The tours and tickets worth booking for each.
Only in Belgium
Chocolate, beer, and a city built on water.
Pretty old towns and good food turn up all over Europe. The chocolate the world copies, a beer tradition UNESCO protects, and a medieval city you explore by boat do not. Build the trip around these three.
Taste it at the source
The home of the praline
The filled chocolate, the praline, was invented in Brussels in 1912, and Belgium never let the craft slip. Tour the old chocolate houses, watch a chocolatier temper a batch by hand, then taste the gap between a supermarket bar and the real thing.
- 1 Choco-Story Brussels: Chocolate Museum Entrance with Tasting
- 2 Hungry Mary’s Famous Beer and Chocolate Tour in Brussels
- 3 Brussels: Belgian Chocolate Making Workshop with Tastings
A protected craft
Beer worth a UNESCO listing
Belgian beer culture sits on UNESCO's heritage list, and a tasting flight tells you why. A Trappist dubbel brewed by monks, a sour lambic aged in oak, a golden abbey ale. There is a different glass shaped for every beer, and a cafe cellar that has poured it for centuries.
- 1 Bruges: Walking Tour, Canal Boat Trip w/Beer Tasting Option
- 2 Belgian Beer Tasting in Brussels
- 3 Bruges: Belgian Waffle-Making Workshop with Beer Tasting
From the water
A medieval city by boat
Bruges and Ghent were built around their canals, and the old merchant houses still lean over the water as they did 600 years ago. Drop below street level on a small boat and the cities open up. Stone bridges, swans, and quiet gardens you would never find on foot.
- 1 Ghent: 50-Minute Medieval Center Guided Boat Trip
- 2 Bruges: Small Group Boat Cruise and Guided Walking Tour
- 3 Guided boat trip and walk
Start here
If you only book one thing.
Belgium fits a lot into a small country. If you have a single afternoon free, this is where most travellers begin.
The big names
Belgium's Most Popular Tours & Tickets
The Atomium, the Bruges canals, a Brussels chocolate workshop, the Flanders battlefields. The experiences that fill most Belgium itineraries.
By city
Pick where to start.
Each city is its own day out. Brussels for the grand squares and the chocolate. Bruges for the canals. Ghent for the gothic towers. Antwerp for fashion and Rubens. Ypres for the fields of Flanders.
By experience
Or pick the kind of day you want.
A canal cruise if you want the postcard. A beer cellar if you want the locals' Belgium. Walking tours, chocolate workshops, museum afternoons, the Flanders fields, and everything in between.
A hundred years on
The fields of Flanders.
Ypres, Passchendaele, Tyne Cot, the trenches and the Menin Gate where the Last Post still sounds every evening. Three tours that give the Western Front the time it deserves.
Two cities, one day
The classic Belgian day trip.
Bruges and Ghent in a single run, the coast when the weather turns, or the battlefields to the west. Three day trips that show you the country beyond a single city.
On two wheels
Belgium was built for bikes.
Flat, compact and laced with cycle paths, it is the way locals actually get around. Three rides that cover far more of a city than your feet ever could.
When the rain comes in
Belgium does grey afternoons well.
It will rain at some point. This is Belgium. Duck into a chocolate workshop, a beer cellar or a museum and let it. Some of the best afternoons here happen indoors.
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