Brussels, Belgium: A Second-Visit Guide and Base for Day Trips

You’ve been to the Grand-Place. You’ve queued for frites and bought the chocolate. Brussels still has a better second visit in it, and this guide is for that one: the rooms behind the facades, and the towns an easy train ride away.

Brussels works best as a hub. It has the Art Nouveau, the Magritte and the museums that weren’t on your first list. It also puts Ghent, Bruges and Mechelen within a day’s reach, each with its own full guide here. Our Belgium hub sets all four side by side.

Brussels for the Second Visit

Start at the Grand-Place anyway, then spend your time elsewhere. French forces shelled the square in 1695 and it was almost entirely rebuilt afterwards. UNESCO put it on the World Heritage list in 1998.

Art Nouveau is the stronger reason to come back. Victor Horta designed his own house and workshop in Saint-Gilles, now the Horta Museum, and UNESCO inscribed it in 2000 together with three of his other town houses. Check the museum’s page for current opening days. → Brussels Art Nouveau walking tour

Horta also designed the building that holds the Belgian Comic Strip Center. It was a textile warehouse for Charles Waucquez, finished in 1906, and it earns its place on the list before you open a single comic.

Tintin fans, a heads-up: the Musée Hergé is in Louvain-la-Neuve, not Brussels. The museum’s own address is Rue du Labrador 26, and Visit Brussels puts the town around 30 kilometers (about 19 miles) from the capital. In the city itself, the Brussels Comic Strip Route, which the Comic Strip Center runs, puts more than 80 works on the walls, with Tintin among the characters. The Tintin Shop on the Rue de la Colline carries the whole range of Tintin merchandise. The Center is the museum for the wider story of European comics, from their early history to recent developments.

The Magritte Museum on the Place Royale presents itself as the biggest Magritte collection anywhere. It belongs to the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, so the Old Masters are close by. Check the museums’ page for current hours and prices.

Then the Musical Instruments Museum, in the former Old England department store on the Mont des Arts. It’s an Art Nouveau building with a restaurant on top and a panoramic view over the city. About 1,200 of its roughly 9,000 instruments are on show. It’s closed on Mondays.

The House of European History is in the Eastman building in Parc Léopold, at Rue Belliard 135, in the European district. The building went up in 1935 as a dental clinic for disadvantaged children. The European Parliament created the museum, which opened to the public on May 6, 2017. Admission is free, the museum’s visitor page puts a visit at around 90 minutes, and the permanent exhibition is available in all 24 official EU languages. Check the museum’s page for current opening days.

Last, the Atomium. It’s 102 meters of steel, built in 1958 for the World Fair, with nine spheres modeled on the unit cell of an iron crystal. You’ve seen it on postcards. It’s odder in person.

You can go inside. The tubes between the spheres house escalators and sound-and-light animations, according to the Atomium’s own site. The visit starts with an elevator ride up to the panorama in the top sphere, which also has a restaurant and a viewpoint over the city. The exhibition route then runs through four spheres on the way back to the ground floor, with four escalators, 80 steps to climb and 167 to descend along the way. The base sphere holds the permanent exhibition on the Atomium’s origins and the 1958 World Fair, and another sphere hosts temporary exhibitions. Only the panorama is wheelchair accessible. → Atomium tickets

Where to Base Yourself for the Day Trips

Sleep in Brussels if you want to unpack once. From the airport, trains reach Brussels-North in about 11 minutes, Brussels-Central in about 18 and Brussels-South in about 23. Ghent, Bruges and Mechelen are each a direct train from the city.

The old center. For a splurge, Hotel Amigo stands on the Rue de l’Amigo, steps from the Grand-Place in a pedestrian-only historic district. It’s the one to book if you want to walk out of the lobby into the old town. → Hotel Amigo, Brussels

Place de Brouckère. For another splurge, Hotel Métropole opened in 1895 on the Place de Brouckère. It’s for anyone who’d rather sleep inside the city’s history than look at it. → Hotel Métropole, Brussels

To be upfront, both of these hotels are a bit of a splurge.

Near Central. If the hotel is only somewhere to sleep, search near Brussels-Central station and weigh the rate against the walk. → hotels near Brussels-Central station

For a walk after dinner, the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert opened in 1847 and still work as a glass-roofed arcade. The flea market on the Place du Jeu de Balle takes place every day.

Frites and a beer are the other half of a good evening here. One note on the beer: Stella Artois comes from Leuven, not Brussels. Visit Leuven, the city’s tourist office, says it has been brewed there since 1926, and the brewery offers guided tours that end with a Stella. Check dates before you go.

Three Day Trips, Three Different Days

Belgium is small, and the rail site does most of the persuading.

Ghent is the easy one. The Belgian rail site gives the direct Brussels–Ghent train an average of 36 minutes and counts about 86 a day. Go for the Graslei and Korenlei quays, the Gravensteen castle and the Ghent Altarpiece, and stay into the evening if you can. Our Ghent guide covers all three. → Ghent day trip from Brussels

Bruges is the long day. The same site gives the Brussels–Bruges train an average of 1h04 and about 65 a day, so it’s a day trip you plan rather than improvise. Our Bruges guide covers the lace, chocolate and canal walks that day-trippers tend to skip. → Bruges day trip from Brussels

Mechelen is the short hop. Visit Mechelen puts it about 20 minutes from Brussels. St Rumbold’s Tower is 97 meters tall with 538 steps and a Skywalk around the top, and the Royal Carillon School, founded in 1922, calls itself the first of its kind. Our Mechelen guide has the rest.

Pick one, or give each its own day. The Belgium hub shows how they fit together.

Practical Notes

Mondays. The Musical Instruments Museum is closed on Mondays, and other museums keep their own closing days. Check each museum’s page before you build a day around it.

Plugs. Belgium runs on 230 V at 50 Hz. Its Type E sockets also accept the two-round-pin Type C plug, so a Type C adapter covers most outlets. Check that your charger says “100-240V” first.