City dossier
Brussels, Belgium
Brussels is where high culture and pop culture share a tram stop. You can move from Flemish masters to Magritte’s mind-bending jokes, then finish in a former brewery full of contemporary provocation. Keep your schedule light: the city likes long museum days, and it strongly discourages rushing—especially after fries.
Local motto
Brussels: Surrealism, Art Nouveau, and Global Conversation
Highlights
Things not to miss
Curated essentials, minus the stiff whispers. We keep the jokes light and the brushstrokes heavy.
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
A dense tour from Flemish masters to modern art, with Brussels’ cultural history written in paint. Come for the classics, stay for the unexpected corners.
Magritte Museum
Surrealism’s greatest hits in a museum that makes reality feel negotiable. You’ll leave questioning hats, apples, and the entire concept of ‘normal.’
BOZAR (Centre for Fine Arts)
An all-arts engine: exhibitions, performances, and a calendar that rarely rests. It’s Brussels’ cultural living room—formal, busy, and always hosting something.
WIELS Contemporary Art Centre
A contemporary anchor in a former brewery—big ideas, strong shows, and a reminder that Brussels has plenty of edge behind the diplomacy.
Galerie La Patinoire Royale Bach
A monumental gallery inside a former roller skating rink—high ceilings, big installations, and contemporary programming that feels perfectly Brussels: serious, stylish, and slightly unexpected.
Horta Museum
Art Nouveau as a lived environment—Victor Horta’s townhouse where every curve feels designed to make you exhale.
Fondation Boghossian – Villa Empain
A glamourous art space in a modernist villa, bridging exhibitions with design and cultural exchange. Brussels does elegance very well when it wants to.
La Loge
A small, sharp contemporary space in a former lodge—focused exhibitions that reward close attention.
Centrale for contemporary art
City-run contemporary programming with a civic pulse—smart shows in the center of town, easy to slot between waffles and wandering.
Belgian Comic Strip Center
Belgium’s love letter to comics, from Hergé onward. It’s graphic storytelling treated as a serious art form—because in Brussels, it is.