Brussels Travel Forum

Hi there,
I am looking to book a hotel which is near the grand place. and i will be travelling via the eurostar which stops at gare du midi. but i will probably take the metro to gare central. i was wandering if someone could please advise me on which metro train ticket i should buy.
there will be two of us and will need to get there and then back again for departing after two days.
thanks if you can help me!

I can recommend the Ibis hotel. It's only a two minutes' walk from the central station (cross the street, go to the right and go down the stairs on the right. You're practically at the hotel) and two or three minutes from the grand place. We stayed there last year.
You can take the train from Midi to the Central station.

Have a good time in Brussels!

What is your budget? If the Ibis is too expensive, I stayed at Hotel La Madeleine, right next door to the Ibis for a lot less money.

In case the above isn't clear, you CAN get by metro from Gare du Midi to Gare centrale, but you might as well go directly by train, it's just one stop from Gare du Midi and your Eurostar ticket should be to "Brussels zone", which covers you to any Brussels station without your having to pay for an extra ticket. At Gare du Midi, the Eurostar terminal covers platforms 1 and 2, so you will be right at one end of the station. Departure boards above the main concourse will show trains to Gare centrale and Gare du Nord, the easiest to find will be the airport trains, which leave roughly every 20 minutes (but trains to Antwerp and Amsterdam will also stop at Gare centrale). Of course you can also ask at the information booths.
If you nevertheless want to go by metro, follow the M signs and on the ticket office level you can buy tickets either from a machine or from a ticket office, current cost is €1.50 per ticket and for 2 of you if you were taking the metro only twice each, there is no better deal than 4 individual tickets (€6). However if you would be using the metro on 3 days in a row, a 3-day ticket costs the same as 6 individual journeys, i.e. €9 (each). Incidentally if you ever get on a bus or tram without having bought a ticket in advance, these cost €2 when bought from the driver. To get to Gare centrale by metro, take direction Simonis, get off at Arts-Loi, then take direction Roi Baudouin/Erasme 2 stops to Gare centrale.