Belgium is the easiest multi-city trip in Europe: four distinct cities, none more than an hour apart, one railcard, and a national cuisine that happens to be perfect backpacker food. We did this as five days; you could stretch it to a lazy week with day trips.
The rail trick
Don't buy point-to-point tickets. A Standard Multi (formerly Rail Pass) gives ten one-way journeys anywhere in Belgium for about EUR 99 in 2026 — under EUR 10 a ride, shareable between travellers on the same trip. Under-26s get the Youth Multi at nearly half that. Trains run several times an hour between all four cities; you will never look at a timetable.
Brussels, more than the bureaucracy
Brussels has a reputation problem and does not deserve it. The Grand-Place is the most theatrical square in Europe — gilded guildhalls that catch fire at sunset — and at night it is lit like an opera set. Beyond it: the comic-strip murals scattered across the city (free self-guided route), the flea market at Jeu de Balle every single morning of the year, and the Cantillon brewery, a working 1900 lambic brewery where the beer ferments in open attic vats using wild Brussels air. Tour and tastings about EUR 12. Eat frites from Maison Antoine or Fritland, double-fried, with andalouse sauce — EUR 5 and better than most restaurant meals. Dorms run EUR 30–40.
Ghent, the one locals pick
Half an hour away, Ghent is the city every Belgian tells you to prioritise, and they are right. It has Bruges' medieval canals with an actual living city attached: a castle with a genuinely funny audio guide (Gravensteen, EUR 13), the Van Eyck brothers' Adoration of the Mystic Lamb altarpiece in St Bavo's Cathedral, and graffiti alley connecting them. Climb the belfry, then drink on the Graslei quay at dusk with your legs over the water like everyone under 30 in the city. Ghent is also Europe's unofficial veggie capital — cheap, good meat-free lunches everywhere. If you can be here in late July, the Gentse Feesten swallows the entire centre for ten free days of music.
Bruges, played correctly
Bruges is a stage set, and the way to beat that is to sleep there. Day-trippers flood in at 10 a.m. and drain out by 6 p.m.; in the evening and early morning you get the swans on the Minnewater, mist on the canals, and the carillon echoing down empty cobbles. Climb the Belfry (EUR 15) early or skip it for the free view from the Rozenhoedkaai. Do one canal boat loop (EUR 12, 30 minutes, worth it), tour De Halve Maan brewery — which pipes its beer under the streets to the bottling plant through a 3 km pipeline — and buy chocolate from a small maker like The Chocolate Line rather than the shops with cartoon boxes. A waffle from a cart, no toppings, still warm: EUR 3, and the correct choice.
Antwerp to finish
Antwerp gets skipped and shouldn't be. Arriving is the argument: Antwerpen-Centraal is routinely ranked among the world's most beautiful railway stations, a cathedral of iron and gilded stone. The city itself is Belgium at its most confident — Rubens' house and his altarpieces in the cathedral, the diamond district's odd hush, vintage shopping around Kloosterstraat, and the free ferry or the wood-panelled 1930s escalators of the St Anna pedestrian tunnel taking you under the Scheldt for a skyline view. Nightlife is the best in the country; De Koninck's bolleke amber in a brown café is the local handshake.
Costs and season
Budget EUR 60–80 a day with dorms, frites-and-waffle lunches and a nightly beer ritual — Belgian beers are EUR 4–6 each even in nice bars, one of Western Europe's few bargains. May, June and September are ideal; December is cold but the Christmas markets and early darkness suit these cities weirdly well.
