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February 8, 2007Brussels, BelgiumReasonable places to stay in BrusselsOne of my most frequent destinations. I usually try the following in this order - www.citadines.be for the Ste Catherine Citadines hotel, which is located in the famous fish restaurant area. This is an apartment style hotel so it may not suit everyone's idea of an ideal place to stay. Breakfast is generally not included unless you go for the European Commission rate (but you need to phone them to book this and last time I got it, they were charging 94 euros/night, which inlcudes b'fast). Generally, if you book well in advance, you might be able to get a special rate of 60 euros/night (make sure youscroll down through the prices in their reservation section as the higher prices come up top and lower at the bottom and you need to scroll down to see them). After I book and they send me the confirmation email, I always email back and ask for a quiet room facing the courtyard, which they generally oblige. I have learned that rooms with an even number are facing the courtyard so when they are giving you the key, you can realise right away if they forgot your request. The hotel is right across from the M1A stop called Ste Catherine, which is on the line that goes to the EC buildiing in both Schumann and Beaulieu. So great location for that. It is also a short walk from Grand place area and there are a number of good restaurants right across the street from the hotel if you arrive late. Good recommendation is one restaurant called Jacques, which is acrss the road from Citadines. If I cannot find a good rate at Citadines web site, I have gone off trying to get the EC rate by phone (they were getting a little sticky lately asking for details etc.). Update February 2008: The EC rate is now 104 euros and includes breakfast. For a short while in the latter part of 2007, the breakfast was dropped from the EC rate but I think they got smart and added it into the room rate instead, which makes life a whole lot easier. The only problem is that you cannot book the EC rate directly on their web site so you need to ring them directly to obtain this rate. I have instead recently been getting fairly decent rates at the Royal Crown hotel in Botanique (right next to North Station and Metro Line 2 stop Botanique, which you can take to connect to Line 1A for the EC or go to Gare du Midi directly on M2. There is also a tram that runs from Rogier to Gare du Midi but I have never quite got my head around the tram systems in Brussels and never had much of a need for this anyway. The web site for the Royal Crown is http://www.royalcrownbrussels.com/ Update Feb, 2008: this hotel is now called Hotel Bloom and has gotten a recent facelift. I stayed there in Dec. 2007 and had a nice recently refurbished room at a fairly decent room rate (not including breakfast, which seemed a very high price). Their web site is http://www.hotelbloom.com/ another one is the Tulip Hotel, which are offerring some decent rates lately on their web site http://www.tulipinnbrusselshotel.com/ this is right next to Rogier, which is also a M2 stop and Brussels Nord Station is very close. If these fail to produce good results, I go to www.ratestogo.com and generally stay at the Queen Anne hotel, which is a short walk from the area DeBrouchere about half way between Debrouchere and Rogier. It is a fairly old style hotel but is good value for money, usually around 80 euros for B&B and free wifi in lobby. Posted by jclarke at 5:39 PM | TrackBack February 7, 2007RyanairChange in flight times to Brussels/coach to city policy changed also.Recently, I have noticed that Ryanair seem to have abandoned the earlier afternoon flight from Dublin to Brussels (following suit with Aer Lingus??) and now it arrives much later and by the time you get the coach to the city, it would be after 10pm when you arrive to the hotel. I often wonder what rationale they use when making these deplorable changes in schedules. This being the case, I will go over on the Aer Lingus flights instead, and maybe return on the Ryanair flight. The Aer Lingus to Brussels evening flight, all going well, gets you to your downtown hotel around 9.30pm. Please note in addition to the later flights also that the Ryanair/Charleroi coach policy has changed now and they no longer depart 20 minutes after the flight arrives I tend to break up my journeys in legs and when going Ryanair now from Dublin to Brussels, this consists of 4 legs (imho): 1. home to Dublin airport (3 hours); 2. flight from Dublin to Charleroi (1.5 hours); 3. waiting for airport - city centre coach (up to 1 hour); 4. coach to Brussels Midi and journey to city centre hotel (1.5 hour). 1. home - Dublin airport (3 hours) 2. Flight to Brussels National (1.5 hours). Update February 2008: I have started using the Charleroi Transfer service, which are door to door minivan service from Charleroi airport to/from Brussels city centre. They are very reasonable (18 euros if paid on line or 23 if you pay driver) and reliable and can be booked on http://charleroitransfer.com/ Posted by jclarke at 6:12 PM | TrackBack Brussels via Paris optionAnother way to get to Brussels early in the eveningAnother option to consider if you are going to meet someone in Brussels early for dinner is flying to Paris CDG instead of Brussels on Aer Lingus and taking the TGV train to Brussels Midi. If you are fortunate, there may even be a connection for a direct CDG to Brussels Midi station (takes 1 hour and 15 minutes on the high speed train). The Paris flight used to leave Dublin at 12 noon, which was ideal to get you into CDG about one hour before the direct Thalys train from CDG to Brussels Midi departed. This would leave you just enough time to collect your bag (if you had one checked in) and get the internal airport bus from terminal 2 where Aer Lingus arrives to Term. 1 (I think) where the TGV station is co-located. I believe this bus station in terminal 2 is outside Gate 20, which is usually a bit of a hike and you gave to wait on extremely slow and crowded elevators to get to it. I did this a couple of times last year when I wanted to get to Brussels early but recently, Aer Lingus have changed the departure time for the Paris flight to 12.20pm, which makes it fairly impossible to get across the airport to the correct terminal where the TGV station is located in time for this connection, especially if you have a checked bag (as is the case now with the restrictions on checked luggage). In this case, you can either wait an additional hour at CDG for the direct train to Midi or you can take a train to Gare du Nord and then connect with a TGV to Brussels Midi (there is one every 20 minutes or so) but it will add about one more hour or slightly less onto the journey. One time I did this (via the direct CDG to Brussels Midi) option with the 12 noon flight, I was actually checked into my hotel in the city centre of Brussels well before 6pm.) If you do the Gare Du Nord option, you will probably be in Brussels at around 7pm instead. You always have to leave time to buy your train ticket also but someone told me that there is some way of getting a ‘member’ card from Thalys that would enable you to purchase the tickets on the trains themselves with a credit card without penalty. I was going to look into this more but I haven’t availed of this option too much recently so I didn’t bother due to the flight time change. This would result in less stress and time savings when you arrive to the train stations and may even result in you making the earlier CDG to Brussels Midi train. Obviously, for the return flight, you could just buy one way Brussels - Dublin on Aer Lingus or Charleroi - Dublin Ryanair options and don't need to go back to Paris. (see my blogs on these options) |
. They only depart once an hour on the hour. In other words, if you get out of the baggage area and front door at 17.02, you have to wait 58 minutes to the next departure. Willie Donnelly and I found this out the hard way on a recent trip and waited in a queue for an empty bus for around 55 minutes (no one bothered to come out to tell us eegits standing there. At least, we weren't on our own there. They neglect to tell you this when you are purchasing the coach tickets inside by the way!.