Brussels, gilded and poured.
Chocolate ateliers, Trappist cellars, comic-strip walls, and the fairy-tale cities up the line. What each tour is really like, what it costs, and where to book it.
Seven Brussels bookings that deliver.
First visit or fifth, these carry a Brussels trip: the chocolate atelier with the queue down the lane, a Trappist flight in a vaulted cellar, the day the fairy-tale cities up the line are actually worth the train.
Atomium Entry Ticket with Design Museum Ticket
Visit the Atomium’s 360-degree views and exhibitions, plus the Design Museum Brussels for Belgian design and plastics.
From $19 per person
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The whole city is a tasting menu.
Praline tempered on a marble slab, a cone of double-fried frites, a waffle folded warm off the iron, speculoos and a counter of Belgian cheese. Come hungry and let a guide do the ordering. These are the sessions that do more than hand you a box.
Where do you go for the day?
Brussels sits at the centre of a small country, and the best day of a trip is often the one you leave for. Three very different days out, each an hour or less away. Pick the one that sounds like you; every option behind it is compared and priced.
The postcard
Bruges, the fairy tale
10h 30m · from $55 · 8,353 reviews
The best-preserved medieval city in Flanders, and it knows it: swan-filled canals, a belfry you can climb, chocolate on every corner. Under an hour up the line. Busy by mid-morning, so the early departures earn their keep.
See the Bruges days →
The local pick
Ghent, minus the crowds
10h 30m · from $55 · 8,353 reviews
The same canal-side guild houses and a castle in the middle of town, with a student city’s energy and a fraction of the coach traffic. This is the one Belgians send you on instead of Bruges. Many trips pair the two on a single day.
See the Ghent days →
The history day
Waterloo, where it ended
13 hours (approx.) · from $113 · 334 reviews
Twenty minutes south lies the field where Napoleon lost an empire. Climb the Lion’s Mound for the whole panorama, then the immersive galleries below. Short and sharp, and easy to fold into a half-day if the weather turns.
See the Waterloo days →
The country that perfected beer.
Trappist ales still brewed by monks, sour lambics aged in oak, a gueuze blended like champagne. The oldest estaminets seat a dozen and pour things you will not find at home. Go once with someone who knows which door to open and how the glass should be held.
A city drawn in speech bubbles.
This is where Tintin and the Smurfs were born, and more than fifty painted murals across the centre prove it. Trace them on foot, then spot the Art Nouveau facades hiding on the same streets.
The ones everyone means to see.
Nine silver spheres on the skyline, a whole continent shrunk to model scale at their feet, and an open-top bus that strings the sights together. Book the tickets before the queue books them for you.
Horta’s Brussels is still standing.
Victor Horta turned iron and glass into the whiplash curves that named a movement, and the guild houses of the Grand-Place still glow gold at dusk. Four hundred years of capital city, open to anyone who books the right hour.
Pick your Brussels.
The centre rewards a slow morning. The Grand-Place for the gold, the Sablon for chocolate, the comic quarter for the painted walls, an Art Nouveau street for the ironwork, and a Belgian beer wherever you end up.
Here for a certain kind of day?
Twelve ways to spend a Brussels day. Pick the kind that sounds like yours, and everything behind it is compared, timed and priced.
An hour on the train changes the day.
Flanders lines up its fairy-tale cities within an hour of Brussels-Midi, the Ardennes hides a citadel above the Meuse, and Amsterdam is closer than you think. The return seat is part of the ticket.
A first Brussels in three days.
You can’t drink all the beer or find all the murals in one trip. You can do the right three days. This is the order a local would give a friend with a long weekend.
Day 1
The Grand-Place and the sweet stuff
Stand under the gilded guild houses before the coaches arrive, then work the chocolate shops of the Sablon and a first warm waffle. Easy pace, maximum Brussels.
Plan day one →
Day 2
Murals, museums and beer
A comic-mural walk into the old centre, Magritte or the Atomium for the afternoon, then a slow flight through the oldest estaminets once the light goes.
Plan day two →
Day 3
Up the line to Flanders
The early train to Ghent or Bruges, canals and a belfry climb, home in time for one last Brussels beer. Decide which fairy-tale city suits and book it the day before.
Plan day three →
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