What to See in Brussels - Top Sights and Attractions

Mansion in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, Belgium. The Stoclet Palace is a mansion in Brussels, Belgium. It was designed by the Austrian architect Josef Hoffmann for the Belgian financier Adolphe Stoclet. Built between 1905 and 1911 in the Vienna Secession style, it is located at 279–281, Avenue de Tervueren/Tervurenlaan, in the Woluwe-Saint-Pierre municipality of Brussels. Considered Hoffman's masterpiece, the residence is one of the 20th century's most refined and luxurious private houses.

The sumptuous dining and music rooms of the Stoclet Palace exemplified the theatrical spaces of the Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), celebrating sight, sound, and taste in a symphony of sensual harmonies that paralleled the operas of Richard Wagner, from whom the concept originated. In his designs for the Stoclet Palace, Hoffmann was particularly attuned to fashion and to the Viennese identity of the new style of interior, even designing a dress for Madame Stoclet so that she would not clash with her living room decor as she had while wearing a French Paul Poiret gown.

The mansion is occupied by the Stoclet family and is not open to visitors. The building has received protected status by the Monuments and Sites Directorate of the Brussels-Capital Region, and it was designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in June 2009.^[1]

Abbey in Ixelles, Belgium. La Cambre Abbey or Ter Kameren Abbey is a former Cistercian abbey in the City of Brussels. It is located in the Maelbeek valley between the Bois de la Cambre/Ter Kamerenbos and the Ixelles Ponds. The abbey church is a Catholic parish of the Archdiocese of Mechelen-Brussels and home to a community of Norbertine canons, while other parts of the monastery house the headquarters of the Belgian National Geographic Institute and La Cambre, a prestigious visual arts school.

The abbey was founded around 1196. It was suppressed during the French Revolution. Most of today's buildings date from the 18th century; only the church, the refectory and the wing of the capitular hall maintain their medieval character. The simple abbey church houses Albert Bouts' early 16th-century oil painting The Mocking of Christ.^[7]

Museum in Anderlecht, Belgium. The Erasmus House, also known as the Erasmus House Museum, is a museum in Anderlecht, a municipality of Brussels, Belgium, devoted to the Dutch humanist writer Erasmus of Rotterdam.

The house, of late Gothic or early Renaissance style, was built between 1460 and 1515 under the tutelage of Peter Wijchmans, canon and schoolmaster of the chapter of Anderlecht, and a friend of Erasmus. Erasmus stayed in the house for five months from May to October 1521, working on his translation of his Novum Testamentum from Greek into Latin.

The house was converted to a museum in 1931. Its garden is split into two parts that both try to adhere to the spirit of Erasmus; one through art and philosophy and the other, designed by the landscape architect René Pechère, through typical medicinal plants from the 16th century. The complex was designated a historic monument in 1938.

This site is served by Saint-Guidon/Sint-Guido metro station on line 5 of the Brussels Metro.^[10]

The Enclosure of the executed is a small cemetery, located at the Rue Colonel Bourg in the Brussels municipality of Schaerbeek, where 365 resistance fighters of both world wars are buried.

The field of honour is located where the national shooting range previously was located. Nowadays, it lies on the plot of several media networks, including the Flemish Radio and Television Broadcasting Organisation and the Belgian Radio and television of the French Community, between the terrains of RTBF and the kindergarten of RTBF.

During the First World War, the shooting range was seized by the German forces who executed thirty-five people on the location, including Jozef Baeckelmans, Philippe Baucq, Louis Bril, Edith Cavell, and Gabrielle Petit. During the Second World War, 261 more people were executed by German soldiers, including Youra Livchitz, known for stopping a Holocaust train, saving dozens of Jews transported to Auschwitz concentration camp. After the war, the turf where they were buried was rebaptised to a memorial site.

Thirty-eight graves are of unknown individuals. A memorial commemorates the thirty-five executed individuals during the First World War. In 1970, another monument was established, honouring the unknown Belgian political prisoners of the Second World War. It exists of a high burial column and an urn with relics of victims of the concentration camps.

Every last Sunday of April, an official ceremony is organised honouring the prisoners of the concentration camps of the Second World War, in the presence of the highest dignitaries of Belgium.

The burial site is part of the protected immovable heritage of Schaerbeek since 12 January 1983.^[11]

Basilica in Ganshoren, Belgium. The National Basilica of the Sacred Heart is a Roman Catholic Minor Basilica and parish church in Brussels, Belgium. The church is dedicated to the Sacred Heart, inspired by the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur in Paris. Symbolically, King Leopold II laid the first stone of the basilica in 1905 during the celebrations of the 75th anniversary of Belgian Independence. The construction was halted by the two World Wars and finished only in 1969. Belonging to the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Mechelen–Brussels, it is one of the largest churches by area in the world.

Located in the Parc Elisabeth atop the Koekelberg hill at the border between Brussels' Koekelberg and Ganshoren municipalities, the church is popularly known as the Koekelberg Basilica (French: Basilique de Koekelberg, Dutch: Basiliek van Koekelberg). The massive brick and reinforced concrete church features two thin towers and a green copper dome that rises 89 metres (292 ft) above ground, dominating Brussels' north-western skyline. It is served by Simonis metro station on lines 2 and 6 of the Brussels Metro.^[12]

Museum in Ixelles, Belgium. The Parlamentarium is the visitors' centre of the European Parliament and is located in the Parliament's Espace Léopold complex in Brussels. The official opening was on 14 October 2011 by President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek. The permanent exhibition contains hundreds of multimedia components, explaining the European Parliament and other European Union institutions. The entrance to the centre is located on the Parliament's esplanade.

Each visitor is provided with a personal multimedia guide (PMG) which guides them through the exhibition, location is used to display content relevant to each area. All content in the Parlamentarium is available in the 24 official EU languages. Tours are held for children, blind and deaf people. The PMG is needed to activate each installation and shows in-depth information, plays audio using an in-ear speaker and displays short films in the visitor's selected language.

The Parlamentarium is open 7 days a week (closed Monday morning) and entry is free. Security is ensured by the use of airport style bag and visitor scanners at the entrance.^[15]

Museum in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, Belgium. The Wittockiana is a public museum and library located in Brussels devoted to the arts of the book and of bookbinding.

The museum is based on the personal collection of Michel Wittock, a former entrepreneur and bibliophile, who donated his collection to the King Baudouin Fondation on 2010. The library was opened to the public in 1983. The Wittockiana is supported by the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles.

The museum reflects Wittock's interests and focuses on books and bookbindings dating back to the Renaissance to our time. Among others it holds an almost complete collection of the Almanach de Gotha, a collection of appr. 600 precious rattles (the former collection of Idès Cammaert), the archives of Valere Gille, a writer and influent personality in the literary world of the first half of the 20th century (whose office furniture is designed by Paul Hankar) and a part of the personal archive of Lucien Bonaparte.

The museum also hosts temporary exhibitions.^[16]

Museum in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, Belgium. La Fonderie, Brussels Museum of Industry and Labour is a museum of industrial history in Brussels, Belgium. It collects objects, documents and oral history on the city’s industrial past and visualises the working history of Brussels.

The museum is located at 27, rue Ransfort/Ransfortstraat in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, on the site of the former foundry of La Compagnie des Bronzes de Bruxelles (1854–1979), close to the Brussels–Charleroi Canal. It is managed as a nonprofit organisation focusing on analysing and exhibiting the economic and social history of the Brussels region. It publishes a magazine, organises guided tours and provides educational activities. La Fonderie also houses a documentation centre open to the public.^[17]

Park in Schaerbeek, Belgium. Josaphat Park is a public park of 20 hectares located in the municipality of Schaerbeek in Brussels, Belgium. The football stadium that was formerly used by the K.V.V. Crossing Elewijt lies on the north-west corner of the park. There is also an elementary school, a tennis club, the communal greenhouses, animals, two playgrounds, a minigolf course, an archery range, three cafés, a kiosk, and some ponds.

The park is a remainder of the old Linthout forest that began at Dailly Square. It was designed by Edmond Galoppin of Melsbroek and inaugurated by King Leopold II of Belgium on 6 June 1904. Its name comes from the resemblance between the valley of the Roodebeek (a tributary of the Maalbeek) where the park is located and the Valley of Josaphat in the Holy Land, noted by a pilgrim back from Palestine in 1574. It was designated on 31 December 1974.^[18]

Museum in Forest, Belgium. Wiels is a contemporary art centre situated in Forest, in the Brussels Capital Region, Belgium in a former brewery. The centre opened in 2007. It has three exhibition platforms with a total exhibition space of 1,800 m2, an auditorium, studio workshops for artists-in-residence, and a café/foyer and bookshop in the former brewing hall. Wiels has no collection, instead putting on temporary exhibitions by national and international artists.

Wiels hosts nine artist-in-residency studios, for which it receives hundreds of applications every year.

For its tenth anniversary in 2017, Wiels organized a group exhibition called The Absent Museum, a reference to the incorrect assumption that Wiels is an art museum.^[20]

Body of water. The Ixelles Ponds or Elsene Ponds are two freshwater ponds in the Brussels municipality of Ixelles. The ponds we can see today are those spared by a 19th-century campaign of drying the wetlands of the Maalbeek valley between La Cambre Abbey and Eugène Flagey Square.

The two long and narrow ponds, whose total lengths are approximately 700 metres (2,300 ft), and widths are approximately 50 metres (160 ft), are aligned on a roughly North-South axis and are separated by a narrow strip of land. With the surrounding park, the Ixelles Ponds are the tip of a long strip of almost uninterrupted greenery reaching all the way from the Sonian Forest deep into Brussels' urban tissue.

The ponds are an extremely popular recreation area for local residents pertaining to the Belgian upper-crust. However, in the late 1990s, the water was polluted with cyanobacteria. This is still the case with the boating lake in the nearby Bois de la Cambre/Ter Kamerenbos where signs are posted at regular intervals, warning of a risk of botulism. Fishing is allowed in the ponds on Wednesdays, Sundays and public holidays.^[22]

Het Goudblommeke in Papier or La Fleur en Papier doré is a historic café/brasserie established in 1944 at Cellebroersstraat 55 in Brussels.

The painter René Magritte, the novelist Louis Paul Boon, and the cartoonist Hergé were all at one time regulars. It was a meeting place for artists in the CoBrA movement, and in 1955 the writer Hugo Claus held his wedding reception there.

The café was registered as a protected monument in 1997. The building is owned by the Public Centre for Social Welfare of the city of Brussels, and partially sublet by AB InBev to the association that runs the café.

Since May 2011, the interior courtyard of the pub displays a comic strip fresco by the cartoonists De Marck and De Wulf (Stam et Pilou).

In January 2021 it was reported that the COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium had left the business's future precarious.^[24]

Building complex in Belgium. The Proximus Towers are twin skyscrapers on King Albert II Street in the Northern Quarter central business district of Brussels, Belgium. The buildings take their name from the telecommunications company Proximus. They are among the tallest buildings in Belgium.

The towers are both 102 metres (335 ft) tall to the roof, and Tower 1 has a spire reaching 134 metres (440 ft) high with a Belgian flag mounted on top. The two towers are linked by a 30 m long glass skyway between the 25th and 26th floors of each building.

The towers were originally conceived as part of an eight-building Brussels World Trade Center complex, but were splintered off into a separate project. The construction of the towers began in 1991 and was completed in 1994.^[30]

Neighbourhood in the City of Brussels, Belgium. The Marolles or Marollen is a popular historic neighbourhood of downtown Brussels, Belgium, situated between the Palace of Justice and Brussels-South railway station. Its inhabitants are called Marolliens.

Lying at the heart of Marolles are the Chapel Church and the Place du Jeu de Balle/Vossenplein. Major arteries of the district include the Rue Haute/Hoogstraat, the Rue Blaes/Blaesstraat and the Rue des Tanneurs/Huidevetterstraat. This area is served by Porte de Hal/Hallepoort metro station on lines 2 and 6 of the Brussels Metro.

The traditional Brabantian dialect of Brussels (known as Brusselian, and also sometimes referred to as Marols or Marollien) was widely spoken in the Marolles until the 20th century. It still survives among a small minority of inhabitants called Brusseleers (or Brusseleirs), many of them quite bi- and multilingual in French and Dutch.^[32]

Conference center in Auderghem, Belgium. The Château of Val-Duchesse is a mansion and estate situated in the municipality of Auderghem in the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium. The château, which occupies the site of a former priory, is owned by the Belgian Royal Trust.

Val-Duchesse played an important role as a venue for negotiations in Belgian and European politics after World War II. In 1956, Paul Henri Spaak led the Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and Euratom at the château, which prepared the Treaties of Rome in 1957 and the foundation of the European Economic Community and Euratom in 1958. The first formal meeting of the Hallstein Commission, the first European Commission, under the presidency of Walter Hallstein, was held on 16 January 1958 at the château.

From 23-25 April 1990, it hosted the Western European Union International Conference which agreed the sequence of accession of the Eastern European Countries of the former Warsaw Pact to European structures.

More recently, it has twice hosted the Belgo-British Conference, in 2002 and 2006.^[34]