Transportation

Transportation: Getting to Belgium & Leuven

By plane
The most convenient airport to fly to is Brussels Airport (Zaventem): it has direct connections to many airports in Europe and is a 16 minute train ride from Leuven.

By train
The city of Leuven is located close to Brussels and has convenient and easy international access by railway. The Thalys high speed train (TGV) links Brussels South to Paris North station (1h20min) and Paris CDG Airport (1h), while the Eurostar high speed train connects it to London Waterloo station (2h25min), via Lille (40min) and Ashford. The Thalys trains also connects Brussels to Amsterdam (2h45min), Rotterdam (1h40min), Aachen (1h35min) and Köln/Cologne (2h20min), among others. There are also direct Inter-City trains between Brussels and the German cities Frankfurt-am-Main (3h35min), via Aachen (1h30min), Cologne (2h10min), Bonn (2h30min) and Limburg-an-der-Lahn (2h55min).
If you arrive by plane, Brussels airport is less than twenty minutes from Leuven. The railway station of Brussels National Airport is in the basement of the airport building. You can take a direct train that has Leuven (in French Louvain) as its final destination (2 per hour, 16' ride).
For the scheduled of departure and arrival times, please consult the website  of the Belgian Railway Company NMBS/SNCB.
(Attention: Make sure to catch the train to Leuven (Louvain) and not to Louvain-La-Neuve: while the French name for Leuven is indeed Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve is a different place).

By taxi
If you take a taxi from Brussels airport to Leuven, the fare from the airport to Leuven is normally around €60.

If you need a taxi to get from the railway station in Leuven to your hotel or the conference venue, you will note that there are plenty of taxi cabs waiting right outside the station.

If, however, you need to call a cab, the most obvious choices would be:
• Taxis Breckpot ( tel. +32(0)16 / 20 20 20 )
• Taxis Denny ( tel. +32(0)16 / 20 65 65 )

By car
Leuven-Brussels = 30 km, from Brussels there are motorways to the most important Belgian cities and to important cities in the neighbouring countries.
Leuven is at the junction of the E40 highway (Brussel/Bruxelles - Leuven/Louvain - Luik/Liège - Aachen (D) - Köln (D))
and the E314-A2 highway (Leuven - Hasselt - Genk - Maastricht (NL) - Aachen (D)).

Leave the E40 Brussels>Liege or E314 - exit Leuven - keep following Leuven - keep right at the end of the exit (after several traffic lights) and at the beginning of the ring road around Leuven (viaduct) - make a U-turn on the ring road to the left just before the first traffic lights (Naamse Poort) - turn right after 300 m (blue sign KULeuven/Groot Begijnhof)

GPS coordinates : N: 50°52'13 O: 4°41'42

By bus 
Transportation by bus from the central station to the faculty club:
Bus number 2 from the Leuven railwaystation, platform number 6.
Take the 7th Busstop called "Naamse Poort" .
There is a bus every 15 minutes.

Getting around in Leuven
The center of Leuven (i.e. excluding the outer boroughs of Wilsele, Heverlee and Kessel-Lo) is a circular shaped city enclosed by an outer ring with a circumference of ca. 2.5 km / 1.6 miles, so the distance from the ring (e.g. the railway station) to the heart of the city is only slightly over 1 km / less than a mile. This means that all the sights and things to do are within a convenient walking distance. Leuven is also pedestrian-friendly, with many parts of the center of the city being closed to motorised traffic, often with the exception of buses and taxi's. 
 

Maps and descriptions of how to go from the hotels/train station to the Faculty Club.

Hotel Binnenhof
Hotel New Damshire
Novotel
Theatre Hotel

Train station

Find Tourist Informtion here 
( a list of restaurants in Leuven can also be found at this link)