Leuven is a city of about a hundred thousand people twenty five kilometres east of Brussels, and about sixty thousand of them are students. KU Leuven was founded in 1425 and is the oldest Catholic university still operating anywhere, which makes Leuven a university town in the full sense: the institution is not in the city, the city is the institution, and in July the place empties.
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It is also the headquarters of AB InBev, the largest brewing company in the world, and Stella Artois has been brewed here since the eighteenth century. Between the university and the brewery, Leuven's two defining characteristics are intellectual seriousness and a quantity of beer, and the Oude Markt, a square entirely lined with bars and often called the longest bar in Europe, is where the second one happens. The photograph at the top of this page is the Town Hall, which is the city's one unarguable masterpiece.
One honest note about the photographs. Our Leuven image set is thin and Town Hall dominated, and the two things the city is best known for, the university library and the Oude Markt, are absent from it entirely. Both are covered in the text and neither is pictured.
What Is Here
The Town Hall is one of the finest Gothic civic buildings in Europe and is worth the trip on its own. Built between 1448 and 1469 in Brabantine late Gothic, it is a three-storey facade covered in tracery with 236 statues in niches, each on a pedestal with a carved scene beneath it. The statues are nineteenth-century additions to niches that stood empty for four centuries, which is the detail that makes it odd as well as beautiful. It stands on the Grote Markt directly opposite St Peter's Church.
St Peter's Church holds two paintings that justify a detour. Dieric Bouts's Last Supper of 1468, one of the earliest and most austere treatments of the subject in Netherlandish painting, and his Martyrdom of St Erasmus, both in the church's treasury along with a Romanesque head of Christ. The church itself was never finished: the planned towers were abandoned when the foundations proved inadequate, and the stumps are still there.
The Groot Begijnhof is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is the quietest beautiful place in Belgium. A walled quarter of brick houses, courtyards, bridges and cobbled lanes founded in the thirteenth century for beguines, women who lived in religious community without taking monastic vows, which was a substantial and distinctively Low Countries social institution. The university bought and restored it in the 1960s and it now houses academics and postgraduates, so it is lived in rather than preserved. It takes twenty minutes to walk and is almost empty.
The university library is the city's modern history in one building. Burned by the German army in 1914 with its entire collection, rebuilt with international donations, burned again in 1940, and rebuilt again; the tower can be climbed and the carillon is played. The reading room is extraordinary and the story is the point.
The Oude Markt is a single rectangular square with bars along all four sides and nothing else, which in a city of sixty thousand students produces the obvious result on a Thursday night. M Leuven is the city museum and is well regarded. And the Stella Artois brewery runs tours, which are the one genuinely industrial thing to do here.
When to Go
April to June and September to October, and the academic calendar matters more than the weather. Leuven in term time is a city of sixty thousand young people with the bars full and everything open. Leuven in July and August is a quiet provincial town with the students gone, which some people prefer and which closes a good deal of the cheaper eating.
The weather is the standard Belgian pattern, eighteen to twenty three degrees in summer and three to eight in winter, grey and damp with rain about one day in three. There is a Christmas market in December.
Two local dates. The Marktrock and the Leuven beer weekend in spring are the city's own festivals, and the student opening week in late September fills every bar in the city and is extremely loud. Any Thursday in term is the Oude Markt at full volume.
Getting There
Leuven is twenty minutes from Brussels Airport by direct train, which makes it one of the easiest first nights in Europe. That is worth knowing: it is closer to the airport than Brussels is, the station is central, and arriving here rather than in Brussels on a first night is a genuinely better plan for anyone landing late.
Trains reach Brussels in twenty minutes, Liege in forty, Antwerp in fifty and Aachen in about an hour, with frequent services. The station is about ten minutes' walk from the Grote Markt along the Bondgenotenlaan.
Locally everything is walkable and flat, which after Liege is a relief. Leuven is a cycling city of the Dutch kind, with the centre largely closed to through traffic and bike parking at the station on an industrial scale. A car is a genuine nuisance: the centre is a low emission zone, much of it is pedestrianised or one-way, and the traffic circulation plan is notoriously confusing for visitors.
Is Leuven Safe for Women Travelers
The FCDO publishes no advised-against areas anywhere in Belgium. Its terrorism section is nonetheless among the more substantial it writes for western Europe: it states that terrorists are likely to try to carry out attacks in Belgium, that attacks could be indiscriminate, and it names the kinds of place at issue rather than leaving it general, listing public transport, national and international transport hubs, music, sporting and cultural events, entertainment and nightlife venues, government buildings and international institutions, and places of worship. It records that the main threat is from extremists linked to Daesh, names fatal incidents in Brussels in 2022 and on 16 October 2023, and notes that Belgian authorities have disrupted a number of plots. Belgium operates a national threat level and it is currently set above its baseline, which is why you will see a heavier police presence than you might expect; we deliberately do not print the number here because it changes, so read the current setting from the advisory itself.
Leuven is a very safe small city and is among the easiest places in Belgium for a woman travelling alone. It is prosperous, compact, flat, well lit and full of young people walking around at all hours, which in practice means the streets are never empty. Violent crime against visitors is rare. The thing to understand about Leuven is the student drinking culture, which is the dominant feature of the city's nightlife and shapes the only real caution here.
The FCDO names the exact stations and trains where theft happens in Belgium, which is more use than a general warning. Theft and pickpocketing are common in crowded areas and it asks for extra care in major railway stations and on public transport particularly at night, noting that there have been cases of violent robbery. The places it names are Brussels Gare du Midi, the Eurostar terminal, and Brussels Gare du Nord, the international trains on the Paris to Brussels and Amsterdam to Brussels routes, and the busy parts of central Brussels including Schuman. It also names a specific method: luggage taken from the racks at the ends of carriages on high-speed trains. Keep a bag where you can see it rather than in the rack by the door, and be wary of any attempt to distract you.
The Oude Markt is the specific consideration and the honest description is a square with forty bars on it. On a term-time Thursday or Friday it holds several thousand students drinking, almost entirely good-natured, and the attendant issues are the ones of any such place at scale: very heavy drinking, drink spiking as a risk wherever a glass is left unattended, and a late walk home through quiet residential streets. The countermeasures are ordinary and worth applying. Watch your own drink and do not accept one you did not see poured. Keep your bag closed and on you rather than on a chair back. Leave with the people you came with. And note that the student bars are cheap enough that measures are generous, which catches visitors out.
Strike action is the thing most likely to disrupt a Belgian trip and the advisory is blunt about it. The FCDO describes strikes as an ongoing issue that can cause severe travel disruption across the country and can affect international travel, and adds the two details that make them hard to plan around: strike action may be announced at short notice, and planned strike action may be extended at short notice. Belgian national rail strikes stop trains across the country, and because so much Belgian travel is by train a single strike day can remove a leg of an itinerary. Demonstrations often coincide with them, particularly at transport hubs and around the Schuman area, the EU quarter in Brussels, where they can also affect access to the British Embassy. Check Belgian Railways before every travel day rather than only on arrival, sign up to BE-Alert, which sends emergency notifications by SMS, and keep a day of slack around any onward international connection.
The bicycle is the daily physical hazard and in Leuven it is more pronounced than in Brussels or Antwerp. The centre is designed around cycling, the lanes are busy and fast, students ride without lights at night and frequently through red lights, and the pedestrianised areas are shared rather than car-free. Stepping off a kerb without looking both ways along a cycle lane is the way visitors get hurt here, and the bike parking around the station is dense enough to be a navigation problem in itself.
Two more. The cobbles in the Grote Markt and the beguinage are set stone and slippery wet, and the beguinage lanes are unlit at night, which is atmospheric and is a trip hazard. And Leuven's low emission zone and circulation plan catch drivers out with automatic fines, so if you must drive, read the rules before entering.
The Leuven Packing List
A flat, damp, cobbled Belgian city where you will walk or cycle everywhere and spend evenings outdoors on a square.
Merino base layers, for the damp and the terraces
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women is the foundation from October to April. Belgian damp cold at five degrees is more penetrating than its number, and the specifically Leuven version of the problem is sitting still outdoors on the Oude Markt in the evening, which is what people do here from about March, long before it is warm enough to. A merino base layer bottom is worth having in December and January.
A fleece from October to May
A Columbia Fast Trek fleece. Over a wool layer this handles a Leuven winter, and it is the layer that makes an evening on a terrace in April possible.
A packable rain shell
A Marmot PreCip Eco rain jacket. Rain about one day in three, usually light. Packable because you will carry it, and because a hood is more use than an umbrella on a bicycle.
Shoes for cobbles and a lot of flat walking
Salomon X Ultra 4 GTX shoes with Darn Tough merino hiking socks. The Grote Markt, the beguinage and most of the old centre are set stone, slippery when wet, and the beguinage lanes are uneven. Waterproof is the useful feature; wet feet by eleven is what ends a day in this climate.
The small things
A small umbrella for the flat streets. A reusable bottle, since the tap water is good. A warm hat and gloves from November to March, which matter if you cycle. A bag that closes properly rather than a shoulder bag, which is both the station advice and the Oude Markt advice. Lights if you hire a bike and intend to ride after dark, because the rental may not include them and the police do fine for it. Register for BE-Alert before you travel and check Belgian Railways on any travel morning. And something other than hiking clothes for the evening, because a university city dresses casually but not outdoorsily.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women in Leuven
Emergency numbers: 112 for all emergencies across Belgium and 101 for police directly. Leuven is Dutch-speaking and English is very widely spoken, both because of the university and because this is Flanders. Sign up to BE-Alert, the government's free emergency SMS service, which the FCDO recommends. The British Embassy is in Brussels, twenty minutes away by train. The university has its own around-the-clock student support and security services, which are a practical resource in the centre at night even for visitors.
US State Department travel advisory: the Belgium advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/belgium, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.
Main hospital: UZ Leuven, the university hospital at Gasthuisberg, is one of the largest and most highly regarded hospitals in Europe and is the main tertiary centre for the region, which makes Leuven exceptionally well provided for a city of this size. Emergency care is of a high standard and English is readily available. Belgium operates a reimbursement system rather than free care at the point of use, so you will usually pay and claim back: keep every receipt and the itemised bill. A UK Global Health Insurance Card or an EHIC covers necessary state treatment on that basis and covers neither repatriation nor private care. The out-of-hours GP number is 1733 and pharmacies run a duty rota.
Official health authority: the Belgian Federal Public Service for Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment. UZ LEUVEN at Gasthuisberg is one of the largest and most highly regarded hospitals in Europe, which makes this small city exceptionally well provided. BELGIUM OPERATES A REIMBURSEMENT SYSTEM rather than free care at the point of use, so expect to PAY AND CLAIM BACK and keep the itemised bill; a UK GHIC or an EHIC covers necessary state treatment on that basis and neither repatriation nor private care. Out-of-hours GP advice is on 1733
US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Brussels.
Official tourism authority: Visit Flanders, the Flemish tourism authority. LEUVEN IS IN FLANDERS so Visit Flanders is the correct authority here. Two local notes that shape a visit: THE ACADEMIC CALENDAR matters more than the weather, because term time means sixty thousand students and everything open while July and August mean a quiet provincial town; and LEUVEN IS TWENTY MINUTES FROM BRUSSELS AIRPORT BY DIRECT TRAIN, closer than Brussels itself, which makes it a better first night for a late arrival
Leuven is twenty minutes from Brussels Airport by direct train. It is a better first night than Brussels for a late arrival.
Watch your drink on the Oude Markt and leave with the people you came with. Student measures are generous.
Look along the cycle lane before stepping off any kerb. Students ride fast, unlit and through red lights.
Check Belgian Railways before every travel day. Strikes are announced and extended at short notice.
Solo women safety assessment: Leuven is among the easiest and safest places in Belgium for a woman travelling alone. It is prosperous, compact, flat and well lit, and with sixty thousand students in a city of a hundred thousand the streets are never empty at any hour, which is a real safety advantage. Violent crime against visitors is rare and English is very widely spoken. The FCDO publishes no advised-against areas anywhere in Belgium; its terrorism section states that TERRORISTS ARE LIKELY TO TRY TO CARRY OUT ATTACKS IN BELGIUM and that attacks could be indiscriminate, naming public transport, transport hubs, cultural events, NIGHTLIFE VENUES, government buildings and places of worship, with the national threat level set above its baseline. ON THEFT it names railway stations and international trains with cases of violent robbery and the method of luggage taken from end-of-carriage racks, which applies on the Brussels and Liege services through here. THE ONE REAL LEUVEN CONSIDERATION IS THE STUDENT DRINKING CULTURE. The Oude Markt is a single square lined on all four sides with bars and nothing else, often called the longest bar in Europe, and on a term-time Thursday it holds several thousand students. It is overwhelmingly good-natured, and the attendant risks are those of any such place at scale: very heavy drinking, drink spiking wherever a glass is left unattended, and a late walk home through quiet residential streets. Watch your own drink, refuse one you did not see poured, keep your bag closed and on you rather than on a chair back, leave with the people you came with, and know that student-bar measures are generous enough to catch visitors out. THE BICYCLE IS THE DAILY PHYSICAL HAZARD and it is sharper here than in Brussels or Antwerp, because the centre is built around cycling, students ride fast and unlit and through red lights, and the pedestrian areas are shared rather than car-free. The cobbles in the Grote Markt and the beguinage are slippery wet and the beguinage lanes are unlit. Medically the city is exceptionally well served by UZ Leuven.
Reading On
Leuven is twenty minutes from both Brussels and its airport, which makes it part of almost any Belgian itinerary. The Brussels packing list covers the capital twenty minutes west, where the embassy is. The Antwerp packing list covers the port city fifty minutes north. The Liege packing list covers the Walloon city forty minutes east, which is the complete opposite of this one, and the Bruges packing list covers the medieval town an hour and a half west. For the country as a whole the Belgium travel guide for women and the Belgium packing list carry the rail network, the strike planning and the practical material in full. For why wool suits sitting still outdoors on a terrace in April, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
