Whether you’re a first-timer or a regular, this walking tour introduces you to the delights of the city centre, whose cobbled streets and charming architecture draw visitors in their droves. Here’s our review.
The picturesque Mont des Arts area in Brussels City Centre (Photo: William Murphy via Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0)
The Belgian capital has long since shed its reputation as Europe’s bland, bureaucratic heartland. Today the city is known as much for its buzzing nightlife, entertainment and cultural scenes as its standing as the home of the European Parliament. At the epicentre of the action is the city centre, where visitors can embark on the below walking tour with renowned tour company Guydeez. The tour takes place in one of the city’s most compact districts, making it easy to navigate on foot, and takes around 2 hours in total, allowing an unhurried introduction to the beating heart of Brussels and its many landmarks and attractions. Here’s more about the tour below.
About the company
Guydeez allows travellers to find a local guide for private and personalised tours in approximately 80 destinations across the globe. All of their guides are local to the area and hand-picked based on their linguistic, cultural, societal, and historical skills and knowledge.
Tours are fully customisable to your preferences and needs and you can plan your itinerary with your guide in advance via an online chat function. Alternatively, you can pick from a range of existing itineraries. Tours are available in English, French, Spanish and Italian.
Tour highlights
Grand-Place: No visit to Brussels city centre is complete without a look around Grand-Place, the city’s central square and an officially designated UNESCO World Heritage Site owing to the wealth of decorative and aesthetic embellishments adorning the multitude of prestigious landmarks lining its four sides. Among the most impressive of them include a string of guild houses built in classic Flemish Baroque style and richly adorned with statues, sculptures and ornaments. There are also several restaurants and cafes dotted around the fringes of the square.
A view over Grand-Place (Photo: RB Photo via Flickr / CC BY 2.0)
St. Michael & St. Gudula Cathedral: Situated close to the Parc du statue roi Baudouin, about a 10-minute walk from the Grand-Place, Brussels Cathedral – officially called the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula – is one of Belgium’s most important historic landmarks. Built in a Gothic style at the start of the 13th century, the cathedral is home to a remarkable collection of liturgical treasures waiting to be discovered by visitors, including tunics, crosses, relics, chalices, several sculptures and altarpieces, as well as an organ featuring over 4.000 individual pipes.
The Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert: Just seconds from Grand-Place is the Royal Saint-Hubert Galleries, a collection of three glass-roofed shopping arcades lined with elegant cafes, luxury boutiques and even a renowned theatre. Whether you’re simply window shopping or are keen to pick up a lavish gift or souvenir from your time in Brussels, this refined, Italian-inspired retail venue – said to be the first covered shopping arcade anywhere in Europe – is more than likely to meet your needs.
Shops flank the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert arcade (Photo: Adam Lusch via Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0)
Belgian Comic Strip Center: With hugely popular characters such as Tintin, The Smurfs and Lucky Luke having emerged from the inventive minds of Belgian cartoonists over the years, the country’s proclivity for animation is renowned across the world. One of central Brussels’ quirkier attractions, the Belgian Comic Strip Center celebrates this rich heritage by taking visitors on a potted history through Belgian comic books. Via a mix of video installations, artwork, photographs and miniature models, the museum offers a journey down memory lane for those of us for whom these fictional creations remain indelibly linked with our childhoods.
BOUCHE Speciality Coffee: After all that time on your feet, you’ll have earned yourself a sit down and a snack. Situated steps away from Place Royal, BOUCHE Speciality Coffee provides the ideal antidote to the hustle and bustle of the city and a fitting way to end your walking tour. Open from early morning to early evening daily, the café’s patrons range from office types seeking a grab-and-go to locals and tourists keen to savour a carefully curated speciality coffee, or one of a range of sweet treats including cookies, muffins and scones. There’s also an outdoor terrace where visitors can watch the world go by and take in the café’s neoclassical surroundings.
Practical info
Getting there: Brussels is connected to a number of major cities around Europe via the Eurostar rail service, including London, Paris and Amsterdam. Trains arrive into Brussels-Midi/Zuid, which is located around 2.5 kilometres from the city centre. For visitors arriving by air, the nearest airport is Brussels International Airport, which is around 13 kilometres from the city centre.
When to visit: Like the rest of Belgium, Brussels has typical weather for northern Europe, which means cold and rainy winters and mild to warm summers, with variable weather in between. Summertime is the most reliable period for sunshine, with average temperatures in the low 70s, but it’s also the busiest time with the city attracting large numbers of tourists, which also means it is the most expensive time to come.
Tourist services: If you are in need of information once you arrive, there are tourist information offices at City Hall on Grand-Place and Brussels Info Place on Rue Royale.