Things to do in Brussels

Landmark · Centre

A UNESCO-listed square of guildhalls rebuilt after the 1695 French bombardment, and still the city's ceremonial heart.

Local tip: Come at seven in the morning when it is empty and the gilding catches the light, or after eleven at night. In between it belongs to tour groups. The Îlot Sacré lanes behind it are a tourist trap with prices to match.

Neighborhood · South of the centre

A working-class quarter below the Palace of Justice with a daily flea market that has run since 1873.

Local tip: The market runs every morning of the year and prices drop sharply after about eleven when sellers start packing. The free lift from Place Poelaert down into the Marolles saves a steep climb and most visitors never spot it.

Neighborhood · Ixelles

A 1930s modernist broadcasting building, two ponds, and the densest concentration of cafés and terraces in the city.

Local tip: Sunday morning is the food market on Place Flagey; the rest of the week the square is a car park. Walk five minutes up to the Ixelles cemetery quarter for cheaper terraces and the student crowd from ULB and VUB.

Nature · Etterbeek / European quarter

A triumphal arch and three museums in a formal park built for Belgium's fiftieth anniversary — the EU quarter's back garden.

Local tip: The Art & History museum next to the arch is enormous and rarely busy, and on the first Wednesday afternoon of the month federal museums are free. The Autoworld collection in the south wing is far better than it sounds.

Culture · Saint-Gilles / Ixelles border

The streets where Victor Horta invented art nouveau, with his own house and studio now a museum.

Local tip: The Horta Museum caps visitor numbers and sells out, so book. But the free version is better value: walk Rue Defacqz, Rue Faider and Avenue Louis Bertrand and read the façades. Several private houses open one weekend a year during Heritage Days.

Nature · Southern edge, from Uccle to Watermael

Four thousand hectares of ancient beech forest on the city's southern boundary, part of it UNESCO World Heritage.

Local tip: Sections of it were inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2017 as part of Europe's ancient and primeval beech forests — the same status as Slovakia's Carpathian stands. Tram 44 from Montgomery drops you at Tervuren on the far edge through an avenue of chestnuts; almost nobody living in the European quarter realises it is twenty minutes away.