Université
de Liège, Belgium
Belgium is an excellent location for travelling around Europe. From Liege,
Paris, London, Amsterdam, Cologne and Luxembourg are all within a 3 hour train
ride. Brussels is only one hour away, and the Brussels airport has discount
airlines flying all over Europe. During my year I travelled throughout Belgium,
and also visited cities in the Netherlands, France, Luxembourg, Germany, England,
Italy, Greece, Poland, Austria and Switzerland. There is plenty of travel information available on the internet, but I found
my travel guide to Belgium very useful for planning day trips and preparing
me before I left. The Liege public library has an extensive travel collection.
With all of the international students in Liege, you can almost always find
someone from the country you want to vist who will be happy to tell you about
their home, and plenty of people to take day-trips around Belgium. For travelling by train within Belgium the cheapest way is to use the Go
Pass if you are under 26, and the Rail Pass if you are older. These passes
cost about $40 and $55, respectively, and provides ten one-way trips within
Belgium. You can use it to travel between all Belgian cities, and it is good
for 6 months, with certain restrictions. There are also plenty of discounts
for people travelling in groups or on weekends in Belgium, the Netherlands
and Luxembourg; ask at the train station or look at their brochures. The web
site for the Belgian trains is http://www.b-rail.be.
It provides train schedules and pricing information. Liege is connected by the Thalys high-speed train to Paris, Brussels and
Cologne. From Brussels the Eurostar train goes through the channel tunnel
to London. The high-speed trains often run promotions; watch the advertisements
and reserve early! The German train website is excellent for schedules for
all trains throughout Europe http://www.bahn.de.
The cheapest flights when I was in Belgium were Virgin
Express, Ryanair, and occaisionally
student fares on Sabena. USIT
Connections travel agency, located on Rue Soeurs de Hasque near the central
University building, usually has good rates for students on a number of larger
airlines. For inexpensive accomodations, look for youth hostels on the internet. Most
of them now accept e-mail reservations, and you will find many different hosteling
websites. It is not necessary to buy a hosteling membership beforehand as
many of the hostels are independant. My friends from Finland, England, Germany, and me in Gent,
Belgium Me and my friend from Poland in Brussels on a typical Belgian
rainy day.
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