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Brussels

Historic yet hip, bureaucratic yet bizarre, self-confident yet unshowy, Brussels is multicultural to its roots.

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　　Anderlecht was still a country village when world-famous humanist Erasmus came to ‘play at farming’ in 1521. The lovely brick home where he stayed for five months is now an appealing museum tucked behind the nearby 16th-century Gothic Church of St-Pierre and St-Guidon. It's furnished with fine artworks, including several...

Must-see attractions

　　In the old Bruxellois dialect, zinneke means ‘a person of mixed origins’, which sums up the city’s inhabitants to this day. Hence Flemish sculptor Tom Frantzen’s statue of a dog with its leg cocked is a proud mongrel, and has inspired the city’s most exuberant celebration of Brussels’ multifaceted make-up,...

Délirium Café

　　This café's barrel tables, beer-tray ceilings and over 2000 world beers were already impressive. Now they’ve added a rum garden, a tap house and the Floris Bar (from 8pm), serving hundreds of jenevers (gins), vodkas and absinthes. No wonder it’s lively. Live music at 10.15pm ...

　　Rue Charles Buls – Brussels’ most unashamedly touristy shopping street, lined with chocolate and trinket shops – leads the hordes three blocks from the Grand Place to the Manneken Pis. This fountain-statue of a little boy taking a leak is comically tiny and a perversely perfect national symbol for surreal...

Cantillon Brewery

　　Beer lovers shouldn’t miss this unique living brewery-museum. Atmospheric and family run, it’s Brussels’ last operating lambic brewery and still uses much of the original 19th-century equipment. After hearing a brief explanation, visitors take a self-guided tour, including the barrel rooms where the beers mature for up to three years...

　　Squatting just off Rue des Bouchers, this pigtailed female counterpart of Manneken Pis is the work of sculptor Denis Adrien Debouvrie, who installed her here in 1985. She’s usually partly obscured by locked iron gates. ...

Place du Jeu-de-Balle Flea Market

　　The quintessential Marolles experience is haggling at this chaotic flea market, established in 1919. Weekends see it at its liveliest, but for the best bargains, head here early morning midweek. ...

Poechenellekelder

　　Despite facing Brussels’ kitsch central, this is a surprisingly appealing café full of genuine old puppets. It offers a great selection of fairly priced beers, including Oerbier and gueuze (a type of lambic beer) on tap. ...

Institut des Sciences Naturelles

　　Thought-provoking and highly interactive, this museum has far more than the usual selection of stuffed animals. But the undoubted highlight is a unique ‘family’ of iguanodons – 10m-high dinosaurs found in a Hainaut coal mine in 1878. A computer simulation shows the mudslide that might have covered them, sand-boxes allow...

Parc du Cinquantenaire

　　Parc du Cinquantenaire was built during Léopold II's reign. It's best known for its cluster of museums – art, history, military and motor vehicles – which house an incredible 350,000 artefacts. The Royal Art and History Museums in the southern wing of the Cinquantenaire buildings are chock-a-block with antiquities. Autoworld,...

Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts

　　This prestigious museum incorporates the Musée d’Art Ancien (ancient art); the Musée d’Art Moderne (modern art), with works by surrealist Paul Delvaux and fauvist Rik Wouters; and the purpose-built Musée Magritte. The 15th-century Flemish Primitives are wonderfully represented in the Musée d’Art Ancien: there's Rogier Van der Weyden’s Pietà with...

St-Gilles Town Hall

　　One of Brussels’ overlooked architectural wonders, this splendid Napoleon III–style palace sports a soaring brick belfry dotted with gilt statuary. Try to see the wedding-hall ceiling, painted by Belgian symbolist artist Fernand Khnopff. ...

　　The typically austere exterior doesn’t give much away, but Victor Horta’s former home (designed and built 1898–1901) is an art nouveau jewel. The stairwell is the structural triumph of the house: follow the playful knots and curlicues of the banister, which become more exuberant as you ascend, ending at a...

　　Strap on a pair of headphones, then step on the automated floor panels in front of the precious instruments (including world instruments and Adolphe Sax’s inventions) to hear them being played. As much of a highlight as the museum itself are the premises – the art-nouveau Old England Building. This...

　　Brussels’ magnificent Grand Place is one of the world’s most unforgettable urban ensembles. Oddly hidden, the enclosed cobblestone square is only revealed as you enter on foot from one of six narrow side alleys: Rue des Harengs is the best first approach. The focal point is the spired 15th-century city...

Old England Building

　　This 1899 former department store is an art nouveau showpiece with a black facade aswirl with wrought iron and arched windows. The building contains the groundbreaking MIM music museum, a celebration of music in all its forms, as well as a repository for more than 2000 historic instruments. The emphasis...

Latest stories from Brussels

　　This centre offers a definitive and enjoyable overview of the country’s vibrant comic-strip culture. Even if you’re not excited by the ‘ninth art’, do peep inside the superb 1906 art nouveau building, a Victor Horta classic built as a fabric store with a wrought-iron superstructure and a glass roof. You...

Church of St-Pierre & St-Guidon

Palais de Justice

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