Brussels 7 Day Itinerary (Belgium Base)
Seven days is the first length on this list long enough to reach the one Belgian region the trains can’t: the Ardennes. Where the 6-day version spends its extra day back in Brussels, this one spends its extra two on a rental car and a night away from the rails entirely. Days one through five hold the same spine as the 4-day and 5-day versions: Brussels, Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp, then Waterloo paired with Leuven.
Book these before you go:
- Your Brussels hotel : near Brussels-Central or Brussels-Midi for days one through five
- Your Antwerp hotel : optional, if you want to split day four into an overnight rather than a there-and-back
- Waterloo 1815 Memorial tickets : day five morning
- Guided Dinant and Luxembourg day tour : the no-car alternative to days six and seven
| Day | Focus | Train time from Brussels |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brussels: Grand-Place, Manneken Pis, Sablon chocolate, Delirium Cafe | Home base |
| 2 | Ghent: Graslei waterfront, Gravensteen, St Bavo’s Cathedral | 27 to 36 min direct |
| 3 | Bruges: Markt, Belfry tower, the canal loop | 53 to 65 min direct |
| 4 | Antwerp: Rubens House, Cathedral of Our Lady, fashion district | 45 to 48 min direct |
| 5 | Waterloo battlefield, then Leuven’s Town Hall and Grote Markt | Waterloo 25 to 35 min, Leuven 20 to 25 min |
| 6 | Rental car to the Ardennes: Dinant or Durbuy, overnight | Car, 1.5 to 2.5-plus hrs each way |
| 7 | Ardennes morning, drive back, last Brussels afternoon | Car, 1.5 to 2.5-plus hrs return |
Day 1: Brussels
Grand-Place first, before the coach groups land, free and UNESCO-listed. Manneken Pis is five minutes away and genuinely small, about 55 to 61 cm; look for ninety seconds and move on. The Sablon has real chocolate, Pierre Marcolini for the modern high-end version or Neuhaus in the Galerie de la Reine, the shop that invented the filled praline in 1912. The Magritte Museum (adult tickets around EUR 13) is worth more than a longer museum crawl. Dinner belongs in Sainte-Catherine, not Rue des Bouchers, EUR 20 to 30 for moules-frites without the tourist markup, then a lambic or gueuze at Delirium Cafe, whose list runs past 3,000 beers.
Day 2: Ghent
Direct trains take 27 to 36 minutes, fare around EUR 10 to 13. Ghent has Bruges’ canal-and-guildhouse look, the Graslei and Korenlei waterfront, the Gravensteen castle, St Bavo’s Cathedral and the Ghent Altarpiece, without Bruges’ crowd density. Gent-Sint-Pieters station sits 20 to 25 minutes from the historic center by foot or tram.
Day 3: Bruges
The direct train takes 53 to 65 minutes, fare around EUR 16 to 18. Climb the Belfry’s 366 steps if the queue looks reasonable, walk the canal loop, and eat off the Markt rather than on it. Go early, since day-trippers off coach tours and cruise shuttles crowd the Markt and Rozenhoedkaai by midday.
Day 4: Antwerp
Trains run every 15 minutes, 45 to 48 minutes each way, fare around EUR 9 to 11. The Rubens House, the Cathedral of Our Lady, the fashion district around Nationalestraat, and the Diamond District by Centraal Station (closed Saturdays and Jewish holidays, skip the hard-sell “diamond experience” showrooms) fill the day. Seven days gives you room that shorter versions don’t: consider swapping the return train for a night in Antwerp and picking up Day 5 from there the next morning instead.
Day 5: Waterloo, then Leuven
Take the direct train from Bruxelles-Central to Waterloo (about 30 minutes, hourly) or the faster Braine-l’Alleud connection (14 to 25 minutes) plus a short bus or taxi to the Memorial 1815 site. The combined Memorial and Lion’s Mound ticket runs about EUR 24. Back in Brussels or Antwerp by early afternoon, catch a direct train to Leuven, 20 to 25 minutes, for the Gothic Town Hall facade, the Grote Markt, and KU Leuven, founded in 1425.
Day 6: Rent a car for the Ardennes
Everything above runs on SNCB’s dense, cheap rail network. The Ardennes doesn’t: Dinant, Durbuy, Bastogne, La Roche-en-Ardenne and the Han-sur-Lesse caves sit 1.5 to 2.5-plus hours from Brussels by car, and rail or bus links into the deep Ardennes are sparse, slow and multi-leg. Pick up a rental in Brussels in the morning and drive to Dinant, a riverside town on the Meuse, or Durbuy, often called the smallest town in the world, and spend the afternoon exploring before an overnight stay. Don’t attempt this as a there-and-back day trip; without a car it burns most of a day just sitting in transit, and even with one, the region rewards slowing down rather than rushing a checklist.
Day 7: Ardennes morning, then home
Spend the morning on whichever Ardennes town you didn’t fully cover the day before, or add the Han-sur-Lesse caves if you’re near Dinant. Drive back to Brussels by early-to-mid afternoon, return the car, and use whatever’s left of the day for anything the first five days didn’t cover, a last pass through the Sablon for chocolate, or a final fritkot cone before you fly out.
Do you need to rent a car for the Ardennes, or is there another way?
You need a car for the real version. Rail and bus links into towns like Durbuy or La Roche-en-Ardenne are slow and require multiple changes, which defeats the point of only having two days there. If you’d rather skip the rental entirely, a guided coach day tour that passes through Dinant on its way to Luxembourg gets you a taste of the region’s edge without driving yourself, though it only touches Dinant, not the deeper towns.
Is 7 days actually enough to add the Ardennes properly?
Barely, and only because this itinerary uses exactly two of those days for it. The verdict on the region stands: two to three nights is what actually rewards the Ardennes, so treat these two days as a genuine taste rather than a full visit, and know that a dedicated Ardennes trip, separate from Brussels entirely, is the version that does it justice.
Return the rental car before, not after, your last Brussels stop. Brussels traffic and one-way streets around the center cost more time than the extra taxi fare from a return counter near Brussels-Midi.