Attractions
Brussels certainly doesn’t fall short on attractions. From museums to markets, historical sites to hot shopping spots, this city has what you’re looking for. Take a look at The Hotel’s favourite city addresses for some urban inspiration.
The Hotel Brussels is a chic hotel on Boulevard de Waterloo. The hotel offers sleek rooms and suites with panoramic views of Brussels, meeting and event rooms and a fine dining restaurant.
Two lovely squares, one neo-gothic church and many old streets and houses surrounding the squares compose one of the oldest neighborhoods of Brussels. Today, it is the chic place to go to for beautiful antiques (antique market every Saturday and Sunday on the Sablon square), art galleries as well as the finest chocolate and pastries in town.
The district that was home to a handful of designers who made Brussels the avant-garde city it is today still flourishes with fine jewellers and edgy European fashion boutiques of leading designer houses. Just take a walk along the Rue Antoine Dansaert and the surrounding area to discover the hub where Brussels’ trendy people like to pass their time.
Paris has the Champs Elysées, New York has Fifth Avenue and Brussels has Boulevard de Waterloo! At walking distance from many worth-to-visit areas, Boulevard de Waterloo is a wide avenue lined with international designer labels, from Gucci to Prada, from Chanel to Dior. If you are looking for high-end fashion,
Situated between the famous Avenue Louise, Chaussée de Waterloo and Chaussée de Vleurgat, Châtelain is a vibrant quartier with plenty of little delicacy shops, cosy bars, flower shops and exquisite restaurants. There is an outdoor market every Wednesday afternoon in the middle of the Place du Chatelain. While Sablon offers a great experience for art enthusiasts, Châtelain does the same for food lovers. Definitely worth a visit!
The sound factory… a unique piece of architectural heritage synonymous with cultural and technological innovation. At the dawn of the 21st century, the liner is already starting a new life. Fully restored and renovated, the building houses concert halls and studios, including the famous Studio 4 and its unique acoustic. Flagey is the place for musical and visual creation, a space of communication, dialogue and encounters, a house open to the world.
In the building of Belgium's Royal Museums of Fine Arts, visitors can explore the 2,500 m2 of the Magritte Museum. This museum stands right in the centre of Brussels, on Place Royale, and exhibits for public viewing the surrealist artist's creations belonging to Belgium's Royal Museums of Fine Arts and originating mainly from purchases and from the Irène Hamoir-Scutenaire and Georgette Magritte bequests. This multidisciplinary collection is the richest in the world. It comprises more than 200 works consisting of oils on canvas, gouaches, drawings, sculptures and painted objects as well as advertising posters, music scores, vintage photographs and films directed by Magritte himself.
Erected in 1928 by the architect and master of Art Nouveau, Victor Horta, it is a centre of cultural and artistic life. A full renovation of the interior restored the original appearance of the building, as originally designed by the master, Horta. Visits are organised ("From Horta to Horta") to allow people to rediscover parts of the building previously off limits to the general public
No visitor can ignore the museum's showpieces: the Iguanodons of Bernissart. You walk through the Mammal Gallery along recent and extinct mammals, and learn what makes them such special animals. A tunnel leads you between the North and South Pole: a view of two different worlds. Our Whale Hall not only contains majestic whales, but also dolphins, walruses, sirenians, seals... A part of the hall is devoted to the whales' role in the economy and their sacrifices to it. Apart from a magnificent collection of shells, the Shell Gallery houses a tropical aquarium and a complete survey of the lower classes of invertebrates. The nearby North Sea Discovery Room takes you on an interactive tour around beach and sea life at the Belgian coast. Insects represent about 80 % of all known animal species, so they can easily fill a whole gallery! The Insect Gallery shows the fascinating life of insects, spiders, crustaceans and other arthropods. After your visit, you'll know everything about the critters you're about to meet alive and well in the Vivarium.The Mineral Gallery has crystals, cut gems, meteorites and precious bits of moon rock. You learn about the qualities that make each mineral unique.Ready to enjoy some city life? Greet the inhabitants of your neighbourhood in "Animal Pal". Small children will have the safari of their lifetime! The latest arrival, the Evolution Gallery, invites you on a journey through the history of living things, a unique and fascinating story, through the meanderings of evolution, an ode to life, its richness and complexity. Really? The giraffe is a cousin of lettuce? The elephant a distant relative of the microbe?
The remarkable collection of Old Masters, witnessing to a rich and creative past, covers a period running from the 15th to the 18th centuries.
The bulk of this collection consists of the painting of the former Southern Netherlands, with masterpieces by Rogier van der Weyden, Petrus Christus, Dirk Bouts, Hans Memling, Hieronymus Bosch, Lucas Cranach and Gerard David. For the sixteenth century, Pieter Bruegel the Elder is magnificently represented with major works like The Fall of the Rebel Angels or The Census at Bethlehem. Finally, for the 17th and 18th centuries the Flemish School is represented by Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and Jacques Jordaens, the French and Italian schools by Simon Vouet, Philippe de Champaigne, Le Lorrain, Jusepe de Ribera, Giovani BattistaTiepolo and others ...
History of the collection
The collection originated during the French Revolution, when many works of art were seized by the occupant, especially from religious institutions.
The Museum was founded in 1801 by Napoleon Bonaparte, but it was in 1830, with Belgian independence, that it really became a major institution. In 1913, de Grez donation enriched the collection with more than 4,000 works on paper dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries (Hendrick Goltzius, Jacques de Gheyn the Younger, Rembrandt, ...).
The marriage of the 9th Art and Art Nouveau
Located in the heart of Brussels, in a majestic Art Nouveau building, created by Victor Horta in 1906, the Belgian Comic Strip Center opened its doors to the public on October 6th 1989. In no time this impressive museum became one of the main attractions of Brussels. Every year more than 200.000 visitors come here to explore 4.200 m² of permanent and temporary exhibitions.
Permanent exhibitions
The Invention of Comic Strip
How did the comic strip begin, and how is it defined? This exhibition takes you on a journey in enormous strides through the history of the world and its civilisations.
The Art of Comic Strip
This exposition proposes to explore the comic strip in all its forms, from the creative process to the range of genres that constitute the European comic strip today.
Horta and the Waucquez Warehouse
This exhibition tells the story of a shop the like of which is no longer seen. Now over 100 years old, this is the only semi-industrial building designed by Victor Horta still in existence today. And what an existence it has had!
The Hergé Area
This new area, articulated around the façade of Marlinspike Hall, will enable visitors to appreciate the creative journey made by Hergé. Not only has he culminated in the glory of the adventures of Tintin, but he was also a comic strip artist long before creating Tintin and carried on his illustrator career.
The Peyo Exhibition
The new permanent BCSC exhibition, host to a plethora of little-known information and documents on this comic strip giant, complete with a highly realistic 3D Smurf village, will be a delight to children as they will be able to enter a Smurf house and play and have fun with their favourite friends.
Pieter De Poortere Auditorium
For many years now, Dickie has been a favourite with magazines, which regularly publish his gags on a caption-free page drawn by his creator, Pieter De Poortere. The character was subsequently adopted by the screen, and short cartoons of his adventures can now be viewed at the Belgian Comic Strip Museum.
Open every day from 10 am to 6 pm.
The museum houses around one hundred thousand items (weapons, uniforms, scale-models, documents), making it one of the world's largest military museums. You'll see: a section weapons and armours from the Middle Ages, a beautiful collection about Napoleon and the French Empire, the Belgian army from 1831 to 1914 with display cases devoted to King Leopold I and Leopold II, the development of weapon technology (up till the mid-twentieth century), the First and Second World Wars (uniforms, equipment, photos and documents), armoured vehicles and warships. The museum's "Air" section includes a complete range of aircrafts, around 80 of which are on display. Don't miss our educational games for all ages. The documentation centres are open to the public. Spectacular panorama overlooking the city from the arcade. Temporary exhibitions about varied subjects.
Brussels Town Hall is one of Belgium's finest civic buildings. Not only because of the numerous sculptures adorning its walls, but also because of its perfect proportions and the incomparable beauty of its tower, the spire of which is topped by the archangel Saint-Michael. Brussels laid the foundation stone of the magnificent Gothic edifice in the spring of 1402. In 1695, when the city was bombarded by Marshal de Villeroy, the Town Hall was destroyed by fire. Its reception rooms and aldermen's offices contain fine Brussels tapestries from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, sumptuous Gothic wooden panelling,the insignia of ancient guilds and paintings from the collections at the Town Hall Museum.
The Town Hall now also offers self-guided tours with visioguides.
This excellent museum occupies the old Art Nouveau buildings of the Old England stores (3000m2 of exhibition space) and is one of the biggest collection of instruments in the world. The four exhibition levels display nearly 1200 instruments (from the 7000 items of the entire collection), antique or contemporary, in a stage set blending the acoustic and visual aspects and integrating technological tools such as interactive terminals and sound spaces. People with visual disability can also enjoy a tailor-made visit, thanks to a tactile and customised approach offered in an interactive place, the Jardin d'Orphée. People with hearing difficulties will be able to do the same by feeling the vibrations of the instruments and trying them out. The museum also has training, activity and research spaces? as well as a library - (T (0)2 545 01 70) specialising in musical instruments.
Source: visitbrussels.be
Chips, beer and chocolates... surely there is more to Belgium than that? Democracy, prosperity, solidarity, pluralism, migration, languages and Europe: these are the themes used by the BELvue Museum to help you to discover Belgium. Each one is developed through present-day testimonials and then traced right through history. This is a modern, original way of gaining a fuller understanding of modern-day Belgium.
Have a look at the gallery too: there are more than 200 objects to view, each one forming a tangible memory of Belgium. Here are just a few examples: a lithograph by Magritte, a motorcycle, crystal vases by Val Saint-Lambert, and a football signed by the Red Devils. The very essence of Belgian-ness!
Source: visitbrussels.be
People often forget that the motor car was one of the brightest stars of Belgian industry prior to the Second World War: Minerva, FN, Imperia, Nagant, Germain and Vivinus were just some of the leading names then. The museum's metal structure was designed in 1880 and was the venue for Belgium's motor show from 1902 to 1934.The museum is rightly seen as one of the most prestigious of its kind in Europe, even the world (roughly 400 vehicles, all in working order). This is the place to relive the history of the motor car from 1886 to the 1970s, from the Model T Ford via the Citroen 2CV, the Volkswagen Beetle, the Czech Tatra and assorted rare models that belonged to 20th century celebrities: ranging from Belgium's Royal Family to a vehicle specially designed to the exact specifications of the Shah of Iran, which was never delivered.
Source: visitbrussels.be
A truly unique experience and the perfect encapsulation of Brussels. Situated on the Brussels Canal, a former freight station has been converted into what we call Gare Maritime today. This building provides a large amount of space for many activities, restaurants and festivals. There is always something exciting happening here and its definitely worth a visit.
The park and its beautiful U-shaped building was commissioned by the Belgian Government in honour of the 50th anniversary of the Belgian Revolution in 1905. The building houses the Royal Military Museum, Autoworld Museum and the Art and History Museum. The park is especially lively on the weekends when there are impromptu dance classes, musicians and food trucks. You can also enjoy the picturesque gardens, statues and fountains.
Brussels Park is the oldest park in the city. It is designed in a neo-classical style and offers wide alleys, symmetrical alignments and perspectives. You can find the Vauxhall, a music kiosk, the Royal Theatre of the Park, the Guinguette Royale and the Radio Kiosk, a bar where you can dance under the trees!
One of the most exhilarating ways to discover Brussels is by going on the Comic Book Tour. The murals were painted to honour the famous Belgian comic artists. There are over 50 murals of famous and niche characters on this tour. It’s definitely a fun and relaxing way to spend the day.
Are you looking for an other worldly experience? You can get that just by riding the metro in Brussels. Pannenhuis station lies on line 6 and the red and orange installations make you feel like you’re in a sci-fi movie. It’s been the go to location for multiple fashion shoots and is definitely one of the most instagrammable spots in Brussels.
ROYAL GALLERIES SAINT-HUBERT
Wander through the Royal Galleries, a gorgeous glass roofed arcade in the center of Brussels.
SABLON
Two lovely squares, one neo-gothic church and many old streets and houses surrounding the squares compose one of the oldest neighborhoods of Brussels. Today, it is the chic place to go to for beautiful antiques (antique market every Saturday and Sunday on the Sablon square), art galleries as well as the finest chocolate and pastries in town.
RUE ANTOINE DANSAERT
The district that was home to a handful of designers who made Brussels the avant-garde city it is today still flourishes with fine jewellers and edgy European fashion boutiques of leading designer houses. Just take a walk along the Rue Antoine Dansaert and the surrounding area to discover the hub where Brussels’ trendy people like to pass their time.
BOULEVARD DE WATERLOO
Paris has the Champs Elysées, New York has Fifth Avenue and Brussels has Boulevard de Waterloo! At walking distance from many worth-to-visit areas, Boulevard de Waterloo is a wide avenue lined with international designer labels, from Gucci to Prada, from Chanel to Dior. If you are looking for high-end fashion,
CHÂTELAIN
Situated between the famous Avenue Louise, Chaussée de Waterloo and Chaussée de Vleurgat, Châtelain is a vibrant quartier with plenty of little delicacy shops, cosy bars, flower shops and exquisite restaurants. There is an outdoor market every Wednesday afternoon in the middle of the Place du Chatelain. While Sablon offers a great experience for art enthusiasts, Châtelain does the same for food lovers. Definitely worth a visit!
FLAGEY
The sound factory… a unique piece of architectural heritage synonymous with cultural and technological innovation. At the dawn of the 21st century, the liner is already starting a new life. Fully restored and renovated, the building houses concert halls and studios, including the famous Studio 4 and its unique acoustic. Flagey is the place for musical and visual creation, a space of communication, dialogue and encounters, a house open to the world.
MAGRITTE MUSEUM
In the building of Belgium's Royal Museums of Fine Arts, visitors can explore the 2,500 m2 of the Magritte Museum. This museum stands right in the centre of Brussels, on Place Royale, and exhibits for public viewing the surrealist artist's creations belonging to Belgium's Royal Museums of Fine Arts and originating mainly from purchases and from the Irène Hamoir-Scutenaire and Georgette Magritte bequests. This multidisciplinary collection is the richest in the world. It comprises more than 200 works consisting of oils on canvas, gouaches, drawings, sculptures and painted objects as well as advertising posters, music scores, vintage photographs and films directed by Magritte himself.
BOZAR
Erected in 1928 by the architect and master of Art Nouveau, Victor Horta, it is a centre of cultural and artistic life. A full renovation of the interior restored the original appearance of the building, as originally designed by the master, Horta. Visits are organised ("From Horta to Horta") to allow people to rediscover parts of the building previously off limits to the general public
PARLAMENTARIUM
The European Parliament's Visitor Centre
Discover the fascinating world of the European Parliament at the newly-opened Parlamentarium, Europe’s largest parliamentary visitor centre.
NATURAL SCIENCES MUSEUM
No visitor can ignore the museum's showpieces: the Iguanodons of Bernissart. You walk through the Mammal Gallery along recent and extinct mammals, and learn what makes them such special animals. A tunnel leads you between the North and South Pole: a view of two different worlds. Our Whale Hall not only contains majestic whales, but also dolphins, walruses, sirenians, seals... A part of the hall is devoted to the whales' role in the economy and their sacrifices to it. Apart from a magnificent collection of shells, the Shell Gallery houses a tropical aquarium and a complete survey of the lower classes of invertebrates. The nearby North Sea Discovery Room takes you on an interactive tour around beach and sea life at the Belgian coast. Insects represent about 80 % of all known animal species, so they can easily fill a whole gallery! The Insect Gallery shows the fascinating life of insects, spiders, crustaceans and other arthropods. After your visit, you'll know everything about the critters you're about to meet alive and well in the Vivarium.The Mineral Gallery has crystals, cut gems, meteorites and precious bits of moon rock. You learn about the qualities that make each mineral unique.Ready to enjoy some city life? Greet the inhabitants of your neighbourhood in "Animal Pal". Small children will have the safari of their lifetime! The latest arrival, the Evolution Gallery, invites you on a journey through the history of living things, a unique and fascinating story, through the meanderings of evolution, an ode to life, its richness and complexity. Really? The giraffe is a cousin of lettuce? The elephant a distant relative of the microbe?
MUSÉE OLDMASTERS MUSEUM
The remarkable collection of Old Masters, witnessing to a rich and creative past, covers a period running from the 15th to the 18th centuries.
The bulk of this collection consists of the painting of the former Southern Netherlands, with masterpieces by Rogier van der Weyden, Petrus Christus, Dirk Bouts, Hans Memling, Hieronymus Bosch, Lucas Cranach and Gerard David. For the sixteenth century, Pieter Bruegel the Elder is magnificently represented with major works like The Fall of the Rebel Angels or The Census at Bethlehem. Finally, for the 17th and 18th centuries the Flemish School is represented by Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and Jacques Jordaens, the French and Italian schools by Simon Vouet, Philippe de Champaigne, Le Lorrain, Jusepe de Ribera, Giovani BattistaTiepolo and others ...
History of the collection
The collection originated during the French Revolution, when many works of art were seized by the occupant, especially from religious institutions.
The Museum was founded in 1801 by Napoleon Bonaparte, but it was in 1830, with Belgian independence, that it really became a major institution. In 1913, de Grez donation enriched the collection with more than 4,000 works on paper dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries (Hendrick Goltzius, Jacques de Gheyn the Younger, Rembrandt, ...).
COMIC STRIP MUSEUM
The marriage of the 9th Art and Art Nouveau
Located in the heart of Brussels, in a majestic Art Nouveau building, created by Victor Horta in 1906, the Belgian Comic Strip Center opened its doors to the public on October 6th 1989. In no time this impressive museum became one of the main attractions of Brussels. Every year more than 200.000 visitors come here to explore 4.200 m² of permanent and temporary exhibitions.
Permanent exhibitions
The Invention of Comic Strip
How did the comic strip begin, and how is it defined? This exhibition takes you on a journey in enormous strides through the history of the world and its civilisations.
The Art of Comic Strip
This exposition proposes to explore the comic strip in all its forms, from the creative process to the range of genres that constitute the European comic strip today.
Horta and the Waucquez Warehouse
This exhibition tells the story of a shop the like of which is no longer seen. Now over 100 years old, this is the only semi-industrial building designed by Victor Horta still in existence today. And what an existence it has had!
The Hergé Area
This new area, articulated around the façade of Marlinspike Hall, will enable visitors to appreciate the creative journey made by Hergé. Not only has he culminated in the glory of the adventures of Tintin, but he was also a comic strip artist long before creating Tintin and carried on his illustrator career.
The Peyo Exhibition
The new permanent BCSC exhibition, host to a plethora of little-known information and documents on this comic strip giant, complete with a highly realistic 3D Smurf village, will be a delight to children as they will be able to enter a Smurf house and play and have fun with their favourite friends.
Pieter De Poortere Auditorium
For many years now, Dickie has been a favourite with magazines, which regularly publish his gags on a caption-free page drawn by his creator, Pieter De Poortere. The character was subsequently adopted by the screen, and short cartoons of his adventures can now be viewed at the Belgian Comic Strip Museum.
Open every day from 10 am to 6 pm.
ROYAL MUSEUM OF ARMY AND MILITARY HISTORY
The museum houses around one hundred thousand items (weapons, uniforms, scale-models, documents), making it one of the world's largest military museums. You'll see: a section weapons and armours from the Middle Ages, a beautiful collection about Napoleon and the French Empire, the Belgian army from 1831 to 1914 with display cases devoted to King Leopold I and Leopold II, the development of weapon technology (up till the mid-twentieth century), the First and Second World Wars (uniforms, equipment, photos and documents), armoured vehicles and warships. The museum's "Air" section includes a complete range of aircrafts, around 80 of which are on display. Don't miss our educational games for all ages. The documentation centres are open to the public. Spectacular panorama overlooking the city from the arcade. Temporary exhibitions about varied subjects.
CITY HALL OF BRUSSELS
Brussels Town Hall is one of Belgium's finest civic buildings. Not only because of the numerous sculptures adorning its walls, but also because of its perfect proportions and the incomparable beauty of its tower, the spire of which is topped by the archangel Saint-Michael. Brussels laid the foundation stone of the magnificent Gothic edifice in the spring of 1402. In 1695, when the city was bombarded by Marshal de Villeroy, the Town Hall was destroyed by fire. Its reception rooms and aldermen's offices contain fine Brussels tapestries from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, sumptuous Gothic wooden panelling,the insignia of ancient guilds and paintings from the collections at the Town Hall Museum.
The Town Hall now also offers self-guided tours with visioguides.
MIM - MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS MUSEUM
This excellent museum occupies the old Art Nouveau buildings of the Old England stores (3000m2 of exhibition space) and is one of the biggest collection of instruments in the world. The four exhibition levels display nearly 1200 instruments (from the 7000 items of the entire collection), antique or contemporary, in a stage set blending the acoustic and visual aspects and integrating technological tools such as interactive terminals and sound spaces. People with visual disability can also enjoy a tailor-made visit, thanks to a tactile and customised approach offered in an interactive place, the Jardin d'Orphée. People with hearing difficulties will be able to do the same by feeling the vibrations of the instruments and trying them out. The museum also has training, activity and research spaces? as well as a library - (T (0)2 545 01 70) specialising in musical instruments.
Source: visitbrussels.be
BELVUE (MUSÉE)
Chips, beer and chocolates... surely there is more to Belgium than that? Democracy, prosperity, solidarity, pluralism, migration, languages and Europe: these are the themes used by the BELvue Museum to help you to discover Belgium. Each one is developed through present-day testimonials and then traced right through history. This is a modern, original way of gaining a fuller understanding of modern-day Belgium.
Have a look at the gallery too: there are more than 200 objects to view, each one forming a tangible memory of Belgium. Here are just a few examples: a lithograph by Magritte, a motorcycle, crystal vases by Val Saint-Lambert, and a football signed by the Red Devils. The very essence of Belgian-ness!
Source: visitbrussels.be
AUTOWORLD BRUSSELS
People often forget that the motor car was one of the brightest stars of Belgian industry prior to the Second World War: Minerva, FN, Imperia, Nagant, Germain and Vivinus were just some of the leading names then. The museum's metal structure was designed in 1880 and was the venue for Belgium's motor show from 1902 to 1934.The museum is rightly seen as one of the most prestigious of its kind in Europe, even the world (roughly 400 vehicles, all in working order). This is the place to relive the history of the motor car from 1886 to the 1970s, from the Model T Ford via the Citroen 2CV, the Volkswagen Beetle, the Czech Tatra and assorted rare models that belonged to 20th century celebrities: ranging from Belgium's Royal Family to a vehicle specially designed to the exact specifications of the Shah of Iran, which was never delivered.
Source: visitbrussels.be
TOUR AND TAXIS
A truly unique experience and the perfect encapsulation of Brussels. Situated on the Brussels Canal, a former freight station has been converted into what we call Gare Maritime today. This building provides a large amount of space for many activities, restaurants and festivals. There is always something exciting happening here and its definitely worth a visit.
CINQUANTENAIRE
The park and its beautiful U-shaped building was commissioned by the Belgian Government in honour of the 50th anniversary of the Belgian Revolution in 1905. The building houses the Royal Military Museum, Autoworld Museum and the Art and History Museum. The park is especially lively on the weekends when there are impromptu dance classes, musicians and food trucks. You can also enjoy the picturesque gardens, statues and fountains.
PARC DE BRUXELLES
Brussels Park is the oldest park in the city. It is designed in a neo-classical style and offers wide alleys, symmetrical alignments and perspectives. You can find the Vauxhall, a music kiosk, the Royal Theatre of the Park, the Guinguette Royale and the Radio Kiosk, a bar where you can dance under the trees!
MURALS OF BRUSSELS
One of the most exhilarating ways to discover Brussels is by going on the Comic Book Tour. The murals were painted to honour the famous Belgian comic artists. There are over 50 murals of famous and niche characters on this tour. It’s definitely a fun and relaxing way to spend the day.
PANNENHUIS METRO STATION
Are you looking for an other worldly experience? You can get that just by riding the metro in Brussels. Pannenhuis station lies on line 6 and the red and orange installations make you feel like you’re in a sci-fi movie. It’s been the go to location for multiple fashion shoots and is definitely one of the most instagrammable spots in Brussels.