Brussels Central Station

Brussels Central is the middle of the three stations on the north-south junction, and the most useful one for the apartment. Almost every domestic service passing through the city calls here.

To and from the airport

Trains between Brussels Airport (Zaventem) and Brussels Central run several times an hour from early morning until around midnight, and the journey is roughly twenty minutes. The airport station sits directly beneath the terminal, so there is no shuttle at either end: you come up the escalator into departures, or down into the station on arrival.

Two things worth knowing before you travel:

• Check the platform screens rather than the train's final destination. Several different services run the same stretch, and the useful question is whether the train calls at Brussels Central, not where it terminates.

The airport supplement, in plain terms

Brussels Airport station charges an extra fee on top of the normal train fare, called the Brussels Airport Supplement and still widely known by its old name, the Diabolo fee. It pays for the tunnel and line built to reach the airport, and it applies in both directions, arriving and leaving.

What this means in practice depends on how you are travelling:

• Buying a normal single ticket to or from Brussels Airport-Zaventem. The supplement is already inside the price you are quoted. You do nothing extra. This is why the short hop to the airport costs noticeably more than a domestic trip of the same length.
• Travelling on a pass or a discounted ticket, such as a Standard Multi, Youth Multi or Local Multi pass, a Senior Ticket, a Youth Holidays ticket, or a Eurostar ticket with the "Any Belgian Station" supplement. Here the fee is not included, and you have to buy the supplement separately before you travel. This is the one that catches people out: the pass feels like it covers everything, and at the airport it does not.
• Children under 12 travelling under the Free 4 Kids conditions do not pay it. Nor do holders of certain season tickets to the airport, or passengers travelling free of charge.

If you are unsure which case you are in, buy the ticket as a journey to "Brussels Airport-Zaventem" rather than adding it to a pass, and the fee is handled for you.

Buses and metro stops are on the next corner if you would rather not walk from the station, though from the apartment the walk is short enough that most of our guests never bother.

Day trips west: Ghent, Bruges and the coast

Ghent, Bruges and Ostend all sit on the same westbound line, which makes them unusually easy to combine. A train heading for the coast will typically call at Gent-Sint-Pieters, then Brugge, then finish at Oostende, so you can pick where to get off and, if the day is going well, carry on further.

Rough journey times from Brussels Central, on the direct services:

• Ghent: around 35 to 40 minutes
• Bruges: around an hour
• Ostend: around an hour and a quarter on the fastest trains

Ostend puts you on the North Sea, and the beach is a walk from the station rather than a bus ride. The Belgian coast tram runs from there along almost the entire coastline if you want to go further.

For Antwerp, trains run east instead, and the journey is comparable to Ghent.

A note on timings: these are the usual patterns rather than a timetable. Belgian services change with the season and with engineering work, so check the SNCB planner on the morning you travel.

The building

The station is by Victor Horta, though the interior was completed after his death and is much plainer than the Art Nouveau townhouses he is known for.