5 Places To Visit In Brussels For Amazing Experience

Vibrant Brussels is known for being many things at once, and that versatility extends to its attractions. Peeing statues, parks and hills with specific cultural missions, resplendent Art Nouveau and Art Deco villas, and even Europe in miniature Brussels has it all. Here, you’ll find 5 essentials to visit when in the heart of Europe.

* Manneken Pis, Jeanneke Pis and Zinneke

Nearly everyone knows about Manneken Pis, the quirky peeing boy statue that Bruxellois like to dress up and have good-humouredly adopted as their symbol. Lesser known are the Manneken’s family members – both girl sculpture Jeanneke Pis and dog sculpture Zinneke have been doing their business on the streets of Brussels since the ’90s.

* Grand Place

Enclosed by a 15th-century town hall, almost 40 sumptuous guild houses and the equally grandiose Maison du Roi, the Grand Place only reveals its splendour after you’ve made your way up one of the several small cobbled alleys. Labelled a UNESCO World Heritage site for its remarkably homogeneous look, visiting Brussels’s iconic square is like stepping back in time. Once every two years, its cobblestones form the canvas for an ambitious flower carpet.

* Atomium

While nine balls of steel balancing on a bunch of sticks might seem like a weird monument, the Atomium actually represents the composition of an iron crystal, magnified to 165 billion times its size. Engineer André Waterkeyn designed the 102-metre-tall (335-foot-tall) giant for the Brussels 1958 World Fair to symbolise a firm belief in the scientific process. The building-and-sculpture hybrid became so popular that it’s now a permanent fixture on the capital’s skyline.

* Victor Horta’s major townhouses

Brussels is a treasure trove of Art Nouveau architecture, and shining examples of the revolutionary pre-war movement are Victor Horta’s townhouses. The Hôtel Tassel, Hôtel Solvay, Hôtel van Eetvelde and Maison & Atelier Horta clearly show their architect as a pioneer of the elegant curves, decorative ironwork and spacious floor plans so essential to the style.

* Villa Empain

By the ’20s, Art Nouveau had made room for the more streamlined beauty of Art Deco, and again, Belgium was one of the first to embrace this daring new architectural style. With severe symmetry and rich materials, Villa Empain by Swiss architect Michel Polak is one of the movement’s masterpieces. Thanks to the Boghossian Foundation, the sprawling mansion is now open to the public and houses a culture and arts centre geared towards creating a dialogue between West and East.