Sights - TWELVE PLACES TO SEE IN BRUSSELS

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Walk around Brussels' Grand Place, admire former guild halls, and have a Belgian Ale while sitting on a terrace.

  Originally an open space on dried up marsh, Grand Place lay on the causeway linking trade between the Rhineland and Flanders. In the 11th Century thatch and timber residences appeared followed by establishment of a royal Brabant court, a state of the Holy Roman Empire.

   Merchants came next, opening stalls that lined streets haphazardly built in all directions. The streets took on the names of the goods sold there. 

   The building with the tall spire is Hotel de Ville. In the 15th Century, Brussels benefitted from wealth from the cloth trade and wanted a building to showcase its importance.  The archangel St. Michael, the patron saint of Brussels, caps its spire. 

  As the population grew, merchants and craftsmen prospered, forming guilds. The original guild halls were made of wood, but the magnificence of Grand Place today can be credited to the French bombardment in 1695. Fire destroyed the halls and 4,000 other buildings, a third of the city, Within 5 years the halls were rebuilt, this time in a Baroque style with reliefs or gold details on the outside representing the respective trades or important events in city history. 

See works of Rene Magritte and Belgian masters in museums surrounding  Place Royale.

 The Royal Quarter is a monument to the rein of Leopold II. After becoming king in 1865, he embarked on molding Brussels into a grand capital. The palace is around the northeast corner.

    At the heart of Place Royale is the equestrian statue of Godefroid de Bouillon, leader of the first crusade. On the western side are the ruins of Coudenberg Castle. 

  On the south side, the Magritte Museum displays more than 200 of artist Rene Magritte's works, including oils on canvas as well as advertising posters, photographs and films. Magritte painted everyday objects. “Is this a pipe? No it is a painting” sums up his most famous work. It revealed the basis of his intellect, the pitting of assumption against truth. 

   Next door are the Museum of Ancient Art and the Museum of Modern Art. The building itself was completed in 1897 as one of King Leopold II's projects aimed at making Brussels the artistic capital of Europe. The collections contain works from the 15th Century to the present. Notable are its collection of paintings by Bruegel.

   Adjacent to the buildings of the Museums of Fine Arts, is an outdoor garden features the museum's collection of sculpture.

Learn how a beer unique to Brussels is made.

Anderlecht to the south of Grand Place was a theological center in the Middle Ages. In the 18th and 19th Centuries, small factories dotted its landscape. Among Anderlecht’s industries was brewing. Before the introduction of the steam engine and industrial refrigeration in the 19th Century, beer production resulted from natural fermentation, a process dependent upon wild airborne yeasts. Cantillon Brewery in Anderlecht uses the same techniques from centuries ago.

   The cooling stage is Belgium's unique contribution to brewing. The mixture of wort is pumped into a large copper vessel where from late October to early April natural fermenting agents (bacteria and yeast) interact with the wort. The brew master opens and closes the shutters managing the flow of outside air to control the cooling process. The Senne River valley is the only place in the world offering the unique combination of temperature, humidity and airborn micro-organisms to produce lambics on a consistent basis.

   After enjoying your samples which come with the tour, exit heading toward Boulevard M. Lemonnier. On the walk back to Grand Place you will find Moeder Lambic, a café where  you can taste different lambic beers.

Take Metro Line 6 to see the landmark building of the 1958 World's Fair and plastic furniture.

Belgium has long used international expositions to showcase its industrial capabilities. The Atomium is the landmark building from the 1958 World's Fair. It was the 11th World's Fair held in Belgium and 5th in Brussels. Expo 58, as it was called, took place at Heysel with many of the buildings from Belgium's 1935 fair reused.

  The centerpiece was the Atomium, a stainless-steel model of an elementary iron crystal magnified 165 billion times. The 9 spheres are hollow as are the tubes. Visitors traveled through the tubes to exhibits that filled the balls. The Atomium celebrated Belgium's iron industry and heralded the age of peaceful use of atomic energy. The fair's theme called for a “More Human World." The American pavilion presented the "American way of life," displaying color television and serving Coca-Cola.

   A short walk from the Atomium is the Art & Design Museum. A permanent display is the Plasticarium collection, an assortment of plastic furniture, utensils and oddities.

Satisfy your interest in military history, motoring, tapestry and lace, and plaster casts.

Formerly the exercise grounds of the Belgian Army, Parc du Cinquantenaire was built for the 1880 National Exhibition.

   Atop the  triumphal arch sits a bronze quadriga guided by a woman representing Brabant raising the national flag. On the columns, mosaics glorify the “peace loving nation of Belgium.”

   The building bookends were designed in the style of London's Kensington Palace. The symmetry of the design was destroyed when the south building was rebuilt after a 1950s fire.

   The Royal Military Museum displays equipment used in World I and II and since. The south building houses AutoWorld and also the Royal Museum of Art & History which boasts a collection of  decorative arts from the Middle Ages. Brussels exported luxury items such as fabrics and tapestries to Paris and Venice.

   Another entrance leads to the Plaster-cast Workshop where craftsmen employ traditional techniques in both in the casting and the patination.

Stroll through the EU's building complex.

Brabant royals hunted outside the eastern walls. Later, merchants built homes there, creating. After World War II, the area fell victim to haphazard urban development, and Belgian politicians used the land as a lure to attract the European Union.

   Luxembourg Square with its statue of John Cockerill welcomes visitors to the EU district. In back of  the train station are the buildings of the European Parliament. Through the passage way on the left is the Parlamentarium. Inside exhibits explain the EU was formed as a response to the destruction of the two World Wars. EU institutions are spread among four cities, however, Brussels is known as the European capital because all the EU's institutions report to offices in Brussels.

   Not far away on  rue Vautier is the former studio of 19th Century artist Antoine Wiertz who painted religious subjects with allegorical themes. Not pleased with the shiny effect of oil painting, Wiertz painted with a mixture of colors, turpentine and gasoline. 

Belgian comic strip characters come alive.

Belgium has been identified with the comic strip, the so called "ninth art," since the 1920s largely due to Herge, who created Tintin in 1929. The comics are celebrated at the Belgian Comic Strip Center on rue des Sables. The building is the former Waucquez Warehouse, an Art Nouveau creation. A glass ceiling fills a central hall with sunlight, a trademark of Art Nouveau.

   If you need a reminder about how the comic strip is embedded in the Brussels psyche, walk the Lower Town to see murals on the sides of buildings. A map of the murals can be found online. The Comic Strip Center takes the visitor behind the scenes to see how a strip is created,

   Stop in the café for a Nero Bier. In the first Nero strip, a criminal uses beer to brainwash Belgians into doing his bidding. In the adventure, Nero discovers a beer tree in Rwanda which makes him rich. In real life, 

  If you are a fan of the Smurfs there is another special place to visit, he Museum of Original Figurines (MOOF). It resides in a gallery designed by Victor Horta as part of the Central Train Station. The museum displays more than 650 figurines and original objects.

What does it mean to be European?

Leopold Park is on land that was a privately held "pleasure garden." After its purchase 1880 the garden was renamed after the first two Belgian kings. Soon after the park was dedicated  as the home of Belgium's scientific institutes. The demise of academics in Leopold Park occurred in 1921 when the  institutions moved to the new campus of the Free University of Brussels. 

  The House of European History sits on land that was the site of the Institute of Hygiene. After the original building was destroyed, Kodak's George Eastman financed a dental clinic for poor children that opened in 1935. The museum explores if being European transcends national heritages.

   The building next door housed the Institute of Physiology. Next is the Business School where reliefs depict trade and travel. The white building is the Solvay Library, opened in 1902 as Institute for Sociology and organized with the library at the center surrounded by numerous studies. Down the hill  is a 15th Century tower. The the last building is the former Institute of Anatomy built in 1893 with sgraffito cartouches as reminders of secular ideas. 

See models of ancient Brussels and have a beer with marionettes.

The Museum of the City of Brussels is located in the King's House on Grand Place. Constructed in the 16th Century, the current Neo Gothic design dates from the 1800s. The ground floor displays pewter, tapestries and porcelain, luxury industries that fueled Brussels' medieval growth.

  On the first floor are dioramas and maps that show Brussels when its boundaries were defined by its first and second walls. The second floor features temporary exhibits, most recently the original medieval statue of St. Michael slaying a dragon that was atop City Hall. 

   After leaving the King's House, go to the back of the building away from Grand Place and cross rue du Marché aux Herbes. Theatre Royal de Toone is at the end of Impasse Schuddeveld, an alley running from the Petite rue des Bouchers and another alley running off rue du Marché aux Herbes. Marionette shows – most often in the Bruxellois dialect – are held here. The theater serves beers in a café apart from the performances. A favorite here is Pauwel Kwak, a Belgian strong pale ale served in a traditional glass.

Take Tram 44 through an ancient forest to visit the African museum and Tram museum.

Take Tram 44 from the underground station at Montgomery to follow Avenue de Tervuren. After passing through residential area, Tram 44 winds through the Foret de Soignes, a remnant of Silva Carbonaria, "charcoal forest," a dense collection of beech trees. Charcoal fueled the smelting furnaces that were used to forge the iron found along river banks on the edge of the forest. The Belgae traded the iron weapons they manufactured for goods from Celts in England.

   A short walk from the end of the line is the newly renovated Royal Museum of Central Africa. The original museum was built as a showcase for artifacts taken from Leopold II's personal possession, the Free Congo State. New collections focus on cultures and natural environments of native African peoples.  

   Re-board the tram to visit the Tram Museum. Trams from the late 1800s to the 1960s are displayed with film clips from several eras. Vintage trams make special tours of the city departing from the museum, usually on Sundays. 

    Take either Tram 44 or Tram 94 to head back to the city. Tram 94 travels through the Brussels park Bois de la Cambre ending at Avenue Louise.

Experience Art Nouveau architecture inside and out.

Once a village known for cultivation of cabbages, Saint-Gilles boomed after Brussels became Belgium's capital. In the 1860s the street pattern was updated. In the 1890s blocks filled with Art Nouveau townhomes .

   Art Nouveau represented an explosion on the senses and return to nature. New technologies, such as the use of metal in construction, allowed architects to open spaces and fill them with light. Buildings became objects of art, both exteriors and interiors. Architects now had the ability to marry natural materials in their buildings. Three types of decorative styles dominated: the arabesque with linear patterns; floral patterns; and the feminine silhouette. The former residence and studio of an Art Nouveau founder, Victor Horta, is a museum located in Saint-Gilles, No. 25-26 rue Americaine.

   The mosaics, stained glass and floor plan create a harmonious whole, from door hinge to landing. Horta thought of residences as decorative show places reflecting an elegant and technology-driven life style. Male visitors appreciate the retractable urinal that Horta designed for next to his bed. .

Explore historical impacts of chocolate making and train manufacturing and travel.

Metro Lines 1 and 2 take you to the Belgian Chocolate Village in an old biscuit factory.

   Belgium's access to cocoa beans through its African colony and Belgian engineering that invented the process to create moldable chocolate led to Belgium chocolate's reputation. The tour ends with samples, a gift shop and chocolate models of Brussels landmarks.

   From there take Metro Line 2 or 6 to Botanique. Switch to Tram 92 to Schaerbeek to visit Train World.

   In 1834 the Belgian Parliament approved construction of the "iron road." This resulted in Belgium having the oldest railway network on the European continent. While neighboring countries relied on water for the movement of goods, Belgium's water options were limited. Belgium used its engineering talent, relative urban density and abundance of coal and iron to lead rail infrastructure development. Between 1835 and 1939, 11,000 locomotives were manufactured by the domestic industry and exported. The museum displays 22 locomotives and objects that illustrate the railroad's significance to Belgium culture and industry.