Taxi from Lille to Bruges and Ghent

Both cities, one day

This is the request we get most often, and it is the one the trains handle worst. Doing Bruges and Ghent from Lille on public transport means routing through Belgian junctions with changes at each stage, and you spend the day watching platforms instead of canals.

By road they are close enough together that a single day covers both properly — a long morning in one, the afternoon and early evening in the other, and home to Lille at a civilised hour. The driver moves the car while you walk, so the transition costs you nothing. A day covering both cities starts at €400 as a guide, and one city on its own costs less. Either way the firm number comes back to you as a free quote before you book.

How close the car can actually get

Worth knowing before you arrive, because it surprises people. Both cities have deliberately made their historic centres difficult to drive into. Ghent restructured its whole traffic plan around a large car-free core, and Bruges restricts and filters access through its medieval streets, which were not built for vehicles and are protected accordingly.

In practice this is not a problem, it is just something to expect. We set you down at the nearest point the vehicle is permitted, which is a short walk from the squares you came for, and we agree where and when to meet again. What you avoid entirely is the thing that ruins a day trip by car: circling a strange city looking for parking you were never going to find.

Or just one of them, at your own pace

Every one of these days starts from Lille — our base is 135 Rue Solférino — and ends back there unless you tell us otherwise. Plenty of people take this journey for a single city and no itinerary. Bruges for the day. Ghent because somebody told them it is the better one. The coast at Ostend or Knokke in summer.

The arrangement is the same: we take you, we agree a time, we bring you back. There is no fixed tour and no group to keep up with, which is the point. If you decide at four o’clock that you want another two hours, message the driver.

Evenings, and getting home

Both cities are at their best once the day-trippers have gone and the light drops over the water. The reason most visitors miss that is the return journey — the last sensible connection back into France goes earlier than anyone expects.

A car removes the deadline. Have dinner in Bruges and leave when you are ready. If you are also going to Ypres, it is in the same direction and the two are usually done on separate days rather than squeezed together. For the capital itself, see Lille to Brussels — a different road and a different price.