Paris to Bruges & Ghent by private car — no change at Brussels

Bruges is 300 kilometres from Paris and there is no direct train. The rail route is Thalys to Brussels-Midi, then a change onto a Belgian domestic service, then a walk from Bruges station to a centre that is largely pedestrianised. With luggage, that is three handling points on a journey that takes three and a half hours by road.

We run this route both as a day trip and, more often, as a one-way transfer for people continuing into Belgium or the Netherlands. Either way the price is fixed for the whole vehicle and includes the tolls, the fuel and the border crossing, which since Schengen is a road sign rather than an event.

Distance

300 km

Drive time

3 h 30 each way

Day length

13 h return, or one way

From

€1,140

Ghent is the reason to do this by car

Ghent sits directly on the route, forty-five minutes short of Bruges, and almost every visitor skips it because the train timetable makes it awkward. It is the larger and less museum-like of the two: a working university city with a medieval centre, the Van Eyck altarpiece in Saint Bavo’s Cathedral and a waterfront at Graslei that most people rate above Bruges’ own.

Two or three hours in Ghent on the way up, then the rest of the day in Bruges, is the itinerary we run most. It costs nothing extra because the car is already passing the door.

Day trip or one way?

A day trip to Bruges from Paris is seven hours of driving for five or six hours on the ground. It is done, regularly, and it is a long but comfortable day in a private vehicle. If you have any flexibility, an overnight is a better trip: Bruges at eight in the morning and after seven in the evening, once the day visitors have gone, is a different city entirely.

A one-way transfer costs roughly 60 percent of the return and is the option most of our Belgian bookings take — Paris to Bruges outbound, then onward to Amsterdam, Antwerp or Brussels airport a day or two later.

Ypres and the Flanders battlefields

The Ypres Salient is thirty minutes off this route and is the reason a large share of our British and Irish clients book it. The Menin Gate, Tyne Cot, Passchendaele and the In Flanders Fields museum can be added as a stop on the way to Bruges, or run as a day of their own from Paris or from Lille. The Last Post is sounded at the Menin Gate every evening at 20:00; tell us if you want to be there for it and we will time the day around it.

What makes this journey different

• Bruges and Ghent in the same journey — Ghent is 45 minutes before Bruges
• No change at Brussels-Midi, no luggage handling
• Runs as a day trip, a one-way drop-off or an overnight
• Drop-off at your hotel door, inside the pedestrian zone where taxis stop
• Also serves Brussels, Antwerp and Ypres on the same corridor

How the day runs

1. 07:00Pick-up in Paris

   From your hotel, apartment or CDG airport.

2. 09:45Ghent

   Saint Bavo’s Cathedral, the Graslei waterfront and the castle. Two to three hours.

3. 13:00Bruges

   Dropped in the centre. Markt, Belfry, the canals and the Béguinage.

4. 18:30Departure

   Or stay the night and we collect you the next day.

5. 22:00Back in Paris

   For a same-day return.

What the price includes

• The whole vehicle, not a seat: four people pay what one person pays.
• All motorway tolls and fuel, on both legs of the journey.
• Your driver’s waiting time at every stop, with no meter running.
• Parking charges at the sites you visit.
• Baby, child and booster seats, fitted free on request.
• Flight tracking and free waiting time if your plane lands late.
• Bottled water, phone chargers and Wi-Fi on board.
• A written invoice, issued by a licensed French VTC operator.

Frequently asked questions

Other journeys out of Paris