Brussels, Belgium 4 Day Itinerary
Brussels is the capital of a country that technically does not have a shared national identity, a city split between French and Dutch speakers that somehow became home to both the EU and NATO, and a place where the most famous monument is a small bronze child urinating into a fountain. It should not work, but it does. Four days here rewards curiosity and punishes anyone who stays only in the postcard zone around the Grand-Place.
Getting In
The train from Brussels Airport (Zaventem) to the city centre runs every 10 minutes and stops at Bruxelles-Nord, Bruxelles-Central, and Bruxelles-Midi in about 23 minutes. The ticket costs around €10.80 for adults (including the mandatory airport supplement of €6.70). The station is directly below the terminal at level -1. Taxis from the airport to the centre cost around €45 to €55 and are legitimate: there are no unlicensed cab scams at this airport, though surge pricing applies. From the Eurostar or Thalys at Bruxelles-Midi, the city centre is a 10-minute metro or tram ride.
Where to Stay
The Saint-Gilles and Ixelles neighbourhoods are the better choices for anyone who wants to see Brussels as a city rather than as a conference destination. Both are 20 minutes from the Grand-Place by tram and have a completely different character: Art Nouveau facades, neighbourhood cafes, and restaurants that are not designed to process tourists. For central convenience, the area around Place Sainte-Catherine (fish market district) has several solid mid-range hotels within walking distance of the main sights.
Day 1: Grand-Place and the Old City
The Grand-Place is where you start because it is genuinely one of the finest city squares in Europe. The guildhalls that surround it were almost entirely destroyed in August 1695 when French troops under the Marechal de Villeroy bombarded Brussels for 36 hours on the orders of Louis XIV. The guilds rebuilt the entire square within five years, which explains why the architecture is unusually unified for a medieval city centre: it is all late 17th-century Flemish Baroque, built in a rush of civic determination. The Town Hall (the one building that survived the bombardment) is genuinely old, from the 15th century, and the difference in scale and material is visible if you look.
Walk two minutes south to Manneken Pis, the small bronze fountain of a urinating boy that has been a city symbol since at least the 17th century. The original is frequently replaced by a copy for restoration; the current figure has an archive of over 1,000 costumes that are changed for special events, and the dressing schedule is posted publicly in advance. It is smaller than every visitor expects. The Jeanneke Pis (a girl squatting, installed in 1987 in a side alley behind the Delirium Cafe) is a deliberate counterpoint that most tourists never find.
For lunch, Frituur Max on Place Rouppe is one of the most reliable frite stands in Brussels: proper thick-cut fries cooked in beef fat, served with a spread of house-made sauces. Eat standing up. Belgian frites are twice-cooked, which is why the texture is different from French versions.
Delirium Cafe on Impasse de la Fidelite (an alley off the Rue des Bouchers) has over 2,000 beers. It is a genuine record. The space is chaotic, lively, and not at all refined, which is appropriate for a place that exists primarily to demonstrate what Belgian brewing produces. Pick a Trappist beer from Westmalle or Orval rather than ordering Leffe, which is a perfectly fine beer that you can get anywhere.
Dinner at Chez Leon on Rue des Bouchers: this has been serving mussels with frites since 1893. The street it is on is now a tourist trap of competing seafood restaurants with aggressive outside salespeople; Chez Leon at least has the historical legitimacy, and the moules mariniere hold up. Order the kilo.
Day 2: Comic Strip Route and the Magritte Museum
Brussels has over 70 comic strip murals painted on building walls across the city, a project started in 1991 and still growing. The route begins near the old centre and moves through residential neighbourhoods. Tintin appears (the original Tintin mural on Rue de l’Etuve has been there since 1991), as do the Smurfs, Lucky Luke, and characters from dozens of less internationally known Belgian series. Pick up a free paper map at the tourist office on the Grand-Place or download the app: both show precise locations. The underground passage near Brussels-Central station has a Smurfs ceiling mural that is genuinely unexpected if you look up while walking through.
The Magritte Museum on Place Royale holds the largest collection of Rene Magritte’s work in the world, around 200 paintings and objects spread across three floors. Magritte was Belgian, spent most of his adult life in a suburb of Brussels called Jette, and painted in a front room of an unremarkable terraced house. His work is funnier and stranger than museum retrospectives usually make it appear. The pipe painting (The Treachery of Images, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”) is not here: the original is in Los Angeles. But everything else is. Ticket around €10 for adults.
The Royal Museums of Fine Arts next door cover Flemish primitives (Rogier van der Weyden, Dieric Bouts) through to the 19th century. The combined ticket gives access to both. If time is limited, the Old Masters section is the priority.
Lunch at Frituur No. 1 near Place du Jeu de Balle in Marolles: the neighbourhood is Brussels’s most working-class inner district and the flea market at Place du Jeu de Balle (daily, but biggest on weekends before 2 pm) is one of the best in Europe for furniture, old books, and objects without price tags.
In the afternoon, the Comic Strip Center (Belgian Comic Strip Center, Rue des Sables) has interactive exhibitions on the history of the Franco-Belgian comic tradition. Admission around €12. It is designed as much for Belgian adults revisiting childhood as for foreign tourists, which gives it an unusual emotional register.
Day 3: Ixelles, Saint-Gilles, and Art Nouveau
This day belongs to the southern communes. Saint-Gilles, immediately southwest of the Palais de Justice, has more Art Nouveau buildings per square metre than any other neighbourhood in the world, a consequence of the style’s explosive popularity in Brussels between 1893 and about 1910. Victor Horta built his studio and home here (now the Horta Museum on Rue Americaine); the building is an undisputed masterpiece of the style, with its curved ironwork, natural light through skylights, and integration of every surface into the design. Admission is around €12; the visiting experience is intimate because the building is small. Book ahead for weekend mornings.
Walk east through Saint-Gilles into Ixelles. The Matongé neighbourhood, centred on Chaussee de Wavre, is the heart of Brussels’s central African community, primarily Congolese. The shops sell fabrics, spices, and prepared food not available anywhere else in the city. Have lunch here: there are several straightforward Congolese restaurants on and around Chaussee de Wavre where moambe chicken and fufu are the things to order.
The Ixelles ponds (Etangs d’Ixelles) are two narrow lakes in a dip in the street. Cafe Belga, in a 1930s Art Deco building that was originally a post office, overlooks the ponds. It is a meeting point for a particular Brussels type: multilingual, lightly employed in EU-adjacent work, quietly stylish. Have a coffee in the afternoon and watch the city’s actual middle class use the space.
Dinner: Le Dillens on Place du Chattelain is a reliable neighbourhood bistro in the heart of the Ixelles market square area (the Wednesday farmers market on this square is worth arriving early for if you happen to be in the area). Classic Belgian preparations done without fuss.
Day 4: Atomium, Mini-Europe, and Departure
The Atomium is a genuine 20th-century monument rather than a novelty: built for the 1958 World Expo, it represents an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times and stands 102 metres tall. Entry costs €16 for adults. The interior of the spheres holds a permanent exhibition on the Expo era and rotating contemporary art shows. The top sphere has panoramic views over the Laeken palace grounds and the city. The escalators and tubes connecting the spheres still have their original 1958 fittings in places, and the engineering is more interesting than the art.
Mini-Europe directly adjacent shows 350 scaled models of European monuments with working details: the fountains of Rome, the Eiffel Tower, the Parthenon. It is aimed at children but adults who can locate their sense of absurdity enjoy it. Ticket around €15.
For a final lunch, the Parc du Cinquantenaire (a 30-minute metro ride from the Atomium) has three museums in the triumphal arch complex: the Royal Museum of Art and History, the Autoworld car museum, and the Royal Museum of the Army. The Art and History collection has one of the strongest Egyptian and Mediterranean antiquities collections outside the major capitals. The park itself is pleasant for a sandwich from one of the takeaway counters if the weather holds.
Bruxelles-Midi for Eurostar or Thalys: the station is 20 minutes by metro from Cinquantenaire. The airport train from Bruxelles-Central or Bruxelles-Nord runs every 10 minutes.
Practical Notes
The Brussels Card (24, 48, or 72 hours, from around €31) covers transport and entry to over 40 museums. For a four-day trip focused on museums, the 48-hour version used on the two heaviest museum days pays off.
Both French and Dutch are official languages; English is universally functional in the city centre and tourist areas. In Saint-Gilles and Ixelles, French is the working language. Do not confuse Belgian waffles: the Liege waffle (denser, cooked to order from a batter with pearl sugar) and the Brussels waffle (lighter, rectangular, often topped with cream and fruit at tourist stands) are different products. The Brussels tourist-stand version sold by the kilo in the centre is the least interesting version of either. For a proper Liege waffle, find a standalone waffle vendor away from the Grand-Place.
Belgian chocolate: the major chains (Neuhaus, Leonidas, Godiva) are legitimate and not overpriced at source. Leonidas in particular sells by weight and the quality-to-price ratio is high. For single-origin and craft chocolate, Pierre Marcolini on Place du Grand Sablon is expensive and worth it.
The Sablon neighbourhood around Place du Grand Sablon is the antiques district: weekend mornings bring a quality antique market to the square, and the surrounding streets have shops open through the week. Prices are not cheap but the selection of Belgian lace, vintage posters, and 19th-century decorative objects is not replicated elsewhere.