About Brussels
Europe's Best-Kept Secret Capital
Brussels suffers from an unfair reputation as a city of bureaucrats and bland eurocrats — a place you pass through on the way to Bruges. Nothing could be further from the truth. Belgium's capital is one of Europe's most rewarding cities for anyone who looks beneath the surface: a place of astonishing architectural variety, world-class museums, the finest beer culture on the planet, and a food scene that has quietly become one of Europe's most exciting.
The city exists in layers. At its heart is the Grand Place — a medieval square so perfectly preserved and so breathtakingly gilded that Victor Hugo called it the most beautiful square in the world. Around it spreads a city of steep cobblestone streets, covered 19th-century galleries, Art Nouveau townhouses designed by Victor Horta, and neighbourhood squares lined with café terraces that fill from noon to midnight on summer evenings. The contrast between the ornate historic centre and the hip, multicultural communes of Ixelles and Saint-Gilles is one of Brussels' great pleasures.
Brussels is also one of Europe's most genuinely multicultural cities — over 180 nationalities call it home, the legacy of its role as an EU administrative capital. This shows most clearly in the food: Congolese mafé, Moroccan pastilla, Vietnamese pho, and Turkish börek sit alongside moules-frites, waterzooi, and the finest Belgian pralines. Two or three days is enough to scratch the surface — but the more time you spend, the more the city reveals itself.
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