5 Reasons To Visit Brussels

Stroll through the neighborhood and you’ll find batik shops, greengrocers with boxes of mangoes and plantains stacked outside their doors, and eateries serving authentic plates of mafé, a Senegalese peanut stew, and Congolese Pondu, a vegetarian dish made from cassava leaves. The neighborhood’s countless bars, restaurants, and nightclubs are testaments to the fact that this vibrant area is alive and kicking at all hours of the day, but you’ll find plenty to do here during the day too. The Kuumba cultural center offers guided tours of Matongé, runs courses and workshops, there are Congolese dance classes every Thursday and they also host cultural and artistic exhibitions of work from across the continent. 

Food is by no means left out though; foodies rejoice in May when hundreds of food trucks congregate for the Food Truck Festival, and you can eat your way around the world while you listen to live music and get into the festive spirit, but there are plenty of other culinary offering throughout the year. There’s Eat! Brussels, Drink! Bordeaux which takes the gourmet Belgian cuisine and adds the best French wines into the mix - what’s not to love? And of course, the Belgium Beer Weekend celebrates the country’s beer heritage with 47 breweries brining over 350 delicious brews to the party!

So if you feel like taking an afternoon off from sightseeing, pulling up a pew on the terrace of a bustling cafe, and watching the world go by as you sip a delightful glass or two of the amber nectar, it’s perfectly acceptable. It’s more than acceptable in fact, and you certainly won’t be the one doing it! Whether alone or with company, there’s something delightful about having the time to do not a lot, and Brussels’ relaxed pace is the perfect spot to slow down yourself and just watch city life drift by. If you’re all for being a flaneur but you’d prefer to stroll rather than sit, head to one of the city’s many flea markets, where you can lazily peruse the stalls and experience the authentic flavor of the city. The whole of Brussels seems to visit the Marché du Midi each Sunday, and for gourmet treats, while you saunter nothing beats the market at Place Sainte Catherine. 

And in a city famed for its ‘bandes dessinées’, it’s not surprising that comic strip style art has leaped off the pages of comic books and onto the walls and gables of the city. Lest you forget the Brussel’s connection to the 9th art, you’ll find huge murals depicting some of its beloved characters on buildings all over the city. The Bruxellois are certainly proud of their comic book heritage, so keep an eye out for larger than life murals depicting Tintin, Snowy, and Captain Haddock fleeing down the fire escape that’s been painted onto the side of a building, or what appears to be most of the cast of Asterix and Obelix enthusiastically attacking a Roman camp. The best way to admire these playful pieces of art is to follow the Comic Strip Route, which takes you on an adventure through the city and past an impressive 55 murals paying homage to the city’s best-loved personalities. 

Living amongst lanyard-wearing Eurocrats certainly doesn't mean the Bruxellois don’t enjoy a little self-mockery and rebelliousness when it comes to art. Nothing shows this more than the city’s rebellious mascot, the Manneken Pis, who’s cheekily doing exactly what his name suggests. And since art imitates life (or is it that life imitates art?), on another unassuming square you’ll find the lifelike statue of Zinneke, Manneken Pis’ four-legged friend who’s also happily peeing in the street. But it’s not only in its Surrealist works of art where dreams collide with reality. No trip to Brussels would be complete without paying homage to its second symbol, the bizarre yet fascinating structure that is the Atomium; a futuristic building made up of nine giant steel balls which mimic the structure of a single iron molecule.