One day in BrusselsGold, revolution and legends
Start early with “Brussels highlights: from the Bourse to the Sablon”: first thing in the morning the Grand-Place is almost empty and the light catches the gilded guildhalls. Carry on through the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert and up to the Mont des Arts. For lunch, head back to the arcades for grey shrimp croquettes. In the afternoon, “From the ashes of 1695 to a king’s oath” takes you from La Monnaie to the cathedral and the Royal Palace. At dusk, “Brussels in the shadows” sets off from the Palace of Justice and ends near the Manneken Pis: have moules-frites on Rue des Bouchers.
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Morning
Brussels highlights: from the Bourse to the Sablon
- The Bourse, a temple over a buried riverA palace of money built where the city’s river once flowed, which now celebrates beer and hides a medieval friary.
- The Grand-Place, the drawing room of BrusselsGuildhalls dripping with gold, a town hall said to be lopsided and a bronze hero everyone rubs so they’ll come back.
- The Galeries Royales Saint-HubertOne of Europe’s first great covered shopping arcades, where the praline was invented and Belgium saw its first film screening.
- The Mont des Arts and its viewpointA terraced garden between the lower and upper town, with the best postcard view of the Town Hall tower.
- Old England, an Art Nouveau gemAn 1899 iron-and-glass department store that now holds thousands of musical instruments.
- The Petit Sablon gardenForty-eight bronze trades stand guard around two counts beheaded on the Grand-Place.
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Lunch
Try Grey shrimp croquettes at Taverne du Passage. Galerie de la Reine 30, Bruselas
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Afternoon
From the ashes of 1695 to a king’s oath
- The Grand-Place and the bombardment of 1695Europe’s most admired square is, to a large extent, a race-against-time rebuild after three days of French bombardment.
- La Monnaie, the theatre that sparked a revolutionOn the night of 25 August 1830, an opera duet sent the audience into the street, and the protest ended up becoming a country.
- Cathedral of St Michael and St GudulaEight centuries in the making, royal weddings and a stained-glass story the Church itself had to address in 2026.
- The Congress ColumnForty-seven metres of stone to celebrate a constitution and, at its foot, a flame that never goes out.
- The Royal Palace and the park of 1830The King of the Belgians works here but doesn’t live here, and the park in front of you was a battlefield in 1830.
- Place Royale: the lost palace and the first kingBeneath your feet lie the remains of Charles V’s palace, and on this square the first King of the Belgians took his oath in 1831.
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Early evening
Brussels in the shadows: gallows, miracles and a gunshot
- The Palace of Justice and the “crooked architect”A building bigger than St Peter’s in Rome, raised on the old gallows hill and cursed by an entire neighbourhood.
- Notre-Dame du Sablon and the Virgin who came by boatA woman from Antwerp, a vision and a boat that, legend has it, rowed itself all the way to Brussels.
- Notre-Dame de la Chapelle and Bruegel’s drawingsPieter Bruegel the Elder married here and is buried here: the painter who, on his deathbed, asked for some of his drawings to be burned.
- The Manneken Pis, the boy of a thousand legendsHalf a metre of bronze, over a thousand costumes, several thefts and no reliable explanation of why a little boy is peeing on a street corner.
- The Amigo and Verlaine’s gunshotA prison named “friend” through a misunderstanding and, just around the corner, the room where Verlaine shot Rimbaud.
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Dinner
Try Moules-frites at Chez Léon. Rue des Bouchers 18, Bruselas