Dinant and Luxembourg from Brussels in One Day: Which Tour, and Is It Too Much?
4 min read
A day trip to Dinant and Luxembourg is two countries by coach in 12 hours, and it suits travellers who want to tick off both without arranging trains. We found two tours that do this, and both run about 12 hours with roughly three hours on the road each way. Expect a long day with short stops rather than a relaxed visit.
The two tours side by side
| Tour | Guide languages | Meeting point | From | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luxembourg tour with a Dinant visit | English, French, Spanish | Boulevard de Berlaimont 18, by Central Station | €33.50 | 4.6 (4,113) |
| Guided day trip to Dinant and Luxembourg | English, Spanish | Carrefour de l’Europe | €32.50 | 4.5 (3,144) |
Both last 12 hours and both offer free cancellation up to 24 hours before the start, according to their booking pages. Check the start time when you choose a date, because the pages only show it after you pick a day.
How the day is built
The first tour’s itinerary starts with about three hours on the coach to Luxembourg City. There you get a guided visit with the Grand Ducal Palace, Place d’Armes and Notre-Dame Cathedral, then free time. After a 1.5-hour drive you reach Dinant for a guided visit that includes the house of Adolphe Sax, the inventor of the saxophone, and more free time, before the drive back. The page notes that in winter the order of the visits is reversed to use the daylight in Dinant, and that commentary may be bilingual depending on who is on board.
The second tour goes to Dinant first: 1.5 hours on the coach, about 1.5 hours of free time, then another 1.5 hours to Luxembourg City. It lists a one-hour guided walk (Place de la Constitution, Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Grand Ducal Palace and the Corniche viewpoint) and 1.5 hours of free time in the itinerary, while the description mentions around three hours. The page also says the order of the cities may change with the season, so treat the timings as approximate.
Dinant itself is a river town on the Meuse below steep cliffs, and the booking pages tie it to Adolphe Sax. The first page adds that it is the birthplace of Leffe beer and has a fifteenth-century collegiate church and a citadel.
What to bring and what to check
The second tour crosses an international border and states that every traveller, children included, must carry a valid travel document: a national ID card for EU citizens, a passport and any required visa for others. The page also says children under 3 must travel in a suitable car seat that you bring yourself, or they will not be allowed to board. The first tour crosses the same border, so carry the same documents on it.
The first page’s list of services names a guide, an air-conditioned coach, radios and earphones, lunch and hotel pickup and drop-off; check there which of these are marked as included before you count on lunch or a pickup. The itinerary itself starts and ends at Boulevard de Berlaimont. The second page names a bilingual guide, coach transport, a panoramic tour of Dinant and a guided walk in Luxembourg City; food and drinks, personal expenses and entrance tickets appear in the same list, and the description suggests lunch at a local restaurant during the free time, so plan to pay for food yourself. Both pages list wheelchair users and people with mobility impairments as not suitable.
Who should book which
Choose the Luxembourg tour with a Dinant visit if you want French as a guide language; it also has more reviews. Choose the guided day trip to Dinant and Luxembourg if English or Spanish suits you and you want the Corniche viewpoint named in the programme. Skip both if six hours of coach travel sounds heavy: the Bruges and Ghent day trip has shorter drives and two historic towns. Other options are on our day trips from Brussels page.
