Brussels Travel Forum

Will be in Brussels for 5 days first week of September and wish to be near the main international train terminal.

Looking for 3 star or better hotel, or Bed & Breakfast. Worried about bad reports of area around Centre Gare Midi rail terminal. Has the area improved at night?

Had considered Ibis Brussels Centre Gare Midi Hotel but as we are in Brussels for 5 nights think the area especially at night will worry my wife. We intend to take day train trips to Germany and other locations, but would be in Brussells some days.

Does the main Gare Midi rail interconnect with Metro rail system which would allow us to have accommodation in a better area.

Appreciate any suggestions.
Mike

We had a great stay at the Hotel Welcome. It is not near the central station but is connected by metro and there is a stop just in front of the hotel. It is a nice, small, b & b type place but the rooms are theme decorated and wonderful. You can check it out at: http://www.brusselshotel.travel/

I would indeed not advise you to stay near the Gare du Midi (South Station), it's not a nice area at all, but very shabby and ugly (and part of it is a building site as the area is being redeveloped - but mainly office blocks). If you must stay in the area, e.g. because you arrive late at Gare du Midi or have to leave there early, the Ibis is probably your best choice as it is the closest to the station, therefore involving the shortest walk from the station exit (Avenue Fonsny side) to the hotel. Even if it is not necessarily a safety issue, it really is not somewhere you want to be on vacation.
If you are arriving on Thalys or Eurostar then although these terminate at Gare du Midi, your ticket is to Brussels which means you can continue on the same ticket to any other Brussels railway station on a local train. I would therefore recommend you take a local train one stop to Gare centrale (Central Station) - any of the trains going to the airport will stop there, and these leave every 15 minutes or so; and stay, for example, at the Ibis "Off Grand' Place", http://www.ibishotel.com/ibis/fichehotel/gb/ibi/1046/fiche_hotel.shtml
This hotel is less than 5 minutes walk (downhill) from the main exit of Gare centrale, and if you are taking InterCity trains to Germany you can just as easily catch them at Gare centrale anyway. For timetables, put in Bruxelles-central as departure station and your destination in Germany on here: http://bahn.hafas.de/bin/query.exe/en (for Thalys, on the other hand, you would have to go to Gare du Midi but note that Thalys is only a high-speed train on the route to Paris, which is the only one on which the high-speed track has been completed at the moment.
Naturally Gare du Midi is also connected to the metro, bus and tram system (run by STIB, the Brussels City transport system), although these go East and West of Gare centrale so to get there you need to take the train (SNCB, Belgian Railways) instead - which would be free for you anyway. If you take a metro, bus or tram you will need to buy a ticket which in September will cost you €1.80 if bought in advance from a machine or metro ticket office, something over €2 if bought on board bus or tram. See http://www.stib.be/index.htm?guest_user=guest_en

P.S. "Centre Gare Midi" rail terminal does not exist: the MAIN international railway station in Brussels (among half a dozen) is "Gare du Midi". You are probably misreading the name of the hotel, which is: Ibis "Brussels Centre" "Gare du Midi". I personally do not consider Gare du Midi to be in the city centre, so this is somewhat misleading and probably deliberately so.

Hi, Thank you for your replies, they were most helpful. I have been onto the Hotel Welcome web page, it looks good.

Mike