Getting from Brussels to Berlin (and return)

Berlin is Germany's capital and its largest city, known for nightlife, museums and a history you can still see on the street. Brussels, the capital of Belgium and home to most of the European Union's institutions, is smaller and more buttoned-up, but the Grand Place, the Manneken Pis and the beer halls make it worth a stop. The two are about 760 km apart, and a lot has changed on this route since this page was first written: Berlin has a new airport, Air Berlin is gone, and you can now sleep your way there on a night train.

Quick summary

For most people the train is the best choice: under 7 hours with one change in Cologne, city center to city center. If you'd rather not lose a day, take the European Sleeper night train. Flying takes about 1 hour 25 minutes in the air but eats most of a day once you add the airports. The bus is the cheapest and slowest.

Trains from Brussels to Berlin

There's still no direct daytime train. You go to Cologne (Köln Hbf) and change there.

• Brussels-Midi to Cologne: a Eurostar (the trains formerly branded Thalys) or a German ICE, in about 1 hour 51 minutes.
• Cologne to Berlin Hauptbahnhof: an ICE, about 4 hours 20 minutes. Belgian Railways counts 17 a day.

That's under 7 hours in total, according to SNCB International, which quotes fares from €19.99 one way if you book early. Walk-up fares are much higher, so buy ahead. You can book the whole journey on one ticket at b-europe.com or at bahn.de. Leave yourself a decent connection time in Cologne: German long-distance trains are often late.

Coming from Berlin, the same trains run in reverse. Spend a night in Cologne if you've never seen the cathedral, which is right next to the station.

The night train

European Sleeper runs two overnight routes that link Brussels and Berlin directly, and between them there's a train six nights a week, according to its timetable:

• Brussels-Prague, via Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Berlin and Dresden, leaving Brussels on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
• Paris-Berlin, with stops including Brussels and Hamburg, leaving Paris on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.

The operator advertises fares to Berlin from €49.99. Check the timetable before you book: departure days and times can change, and the operator itself tells passengers to confirm with the national rail planners on the day. You save a hotel night and wake up in Berlin, which is hard to beat.

Flights from Brussels to Berlin

Two changes matter here. Berlin's old airports are gone: Tegel closed in November 2020, and all flights now use Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER), which opened in 2020 next to the old Schönefeld airport. And Air Berlin, once the big airline at Tegel, went bust and stopped flying in October 2017.

From Brussels Airport (BRU) in Zaventem, Brussels Airlines flies nonstop to BER. Brussels also has Charleroi (CRL), about 50 km south of the city, which is where the low-cost airlines go; check which airlines currently fly from there to Berlin before you plan around it, and remember the bus transfer each way.

The flight takes about an hour and a half. Add check-in, security and the airport trains at each end (the FEX airport express takes about 25 minutes from BER to Berlin Hauptbahnhof), and door to door it's not much faster than the day train.

Buses from Brussels to Berlin

Eurolines, which ran this route when this page was first written, was bought by FlixBus in 2019. FlixBus now lists around 16 trips a day, fares from €16.97, and a journey time from about 9 hours 20 minutes. Buses leave from Brussels-Nord and Brussels-Midi, among other stops, and arrive at several places in Berlin including the central bus station (ZOB), Südkreuz and Alexanderplatz. The overnight buses save a night's accommodation, if you can sleep on a bus.

Driving from Brussels to Berlin

If you want to stop along the way, renting a car and driving is an option. The fastest route is about 760 km and takes around 8 hours without traffic, according to OpenStreetMap's route planner. It heads east past Leuven, crosses a short stretch of the Netherlands near Maastricht, and then follows the German autobahns past Cologne and Hanover. Aachen, Cologne and Hanover all make good places to break the trip.

Two things to know. Berlin, like Brussels, has a low-emission zone (Umweltzone), and cars need a green sticker to enter; rental cars usually have one, but check. And one-way rentals across a border can come with a hefty drop-off fee.

Adding Amsterdam

Amsterdam sits neatly between the two, so it's easy to turn this into a triangle. The night train already stops there. See our guides to Amsterdam to Brussels and Amsterdam to Berlin, and for onward travel east, Amsterdam to Prague.

If you're flying in from outside Europe, a multi-stop ticket lets you fly into one of these cities and out of another. AirTreks, BootsnAll's sister company, has been building multi-stop and round-the-world tickets since 1987. This sample route strings all three together:

More ideas are on our RTW and multi-stop trips page.

Photo credit: Berlin Train Station