Brussels contains what Victor Hugo described as the most beautiful square in the world — and a short walk from that gilded medieval square are Victor Horta’s Art Nouveau masterpieces and one of Europe’s most cosmopolitan neighbourhood restaurant scenes. This brussels walking tour companion post pairs with “BRUSSELS, Belgium — Europe’s Secret Capital | 4K Walking Tour” by the channel Walking OZ, which takes viewers through the historic heart of Belgium’s capital from the UNESCO-listed Grand Place through the Sablon antiques district and out toward the city’s vibrant inner neighbourhoods. Brussels rewards walking: it is a city of sudden architectural surprises and neighbourhood transitions.
About This Walking Tour
Walking OZ’s 4K tour of Brussels covers the city’s central historic area with a focus on what makes the Belgian capital distinctive beyond its EU institutions. The walk begins at the Grand Place — the city’s central square, surrounded by elaborately gilded Baroque guild houses rebuilt between 1695 and 1705 after French bombardment under Louis XIV levelled the original medieval buildings. The Town Hall, which survived the bombardment, dates from the 15th century and its tower remains the focal point of the square.
From the Grand Place, the walk passes the Manneken Pis — the small bronze fountain statue from 1618 that has become Brussels’s most unlikely city symbol, famed for its extensive costume collection — and enters the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, an elegant 1847 covered arcade that was the first of its kind in the world, housing chocolatiers, booksellers, and cafés beneath a long glass vault.
The route continues to the Place du Grand Sablon, a refined square lined with antique dealers and chocolate shops and overlooked by the Gothic Notre Dame du Sablon church. The 4K video captures the ornamental detail of the Grand Place guild houses, the ironwork of the Galeries, and the neighbourhood transitions as the walk moves outward from the city’s medieval core.
Highlights of Brussels
The Grand Place is Brussels’s centrepiece and justifiably a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The guild houses that surround it — Le Roi d’Espagne, La Brouette, Le Sac, La Louve, Le Cornet, and others — were built by the city’s trade guilds in a remarkable collective rebuilding effort following the French bombardment of 1695. Each facade competes in gilded Baroque ornamentation, and at night the illuminated square is one of the most dramatic urban spaces in Europe. Every two years in mid-August, the entire square floor is covered in a carpet of 750,000 begonias.
The Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, opened in 1847, is the world’s oldest surviving large covered shopping arcade. Its three interconnected galleries — du Roi, de la Reine, and des Princes — stretch for 213 metres and house some of Belgium’s finest chocolatiers alongside theatres, cafés, and bookshops.
Victor Horta’s Hôtel Tassel, built in 1893 in the Ixelles neighbourhood, is widely credited as the world’s first fully realised Art Nouveau building. Horta’s own house, now the Horta Museum on Rue Américaine, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and offers an intimate view of the total Art Nouveau design philosophy — the building, furniture, glasswork, and ironwork were all conceived as a unified whole.
The Place du Grand Sablon hosts a weekend antiques market and is surrounded by praline chocolate shops including the historic Wittamer patisserie. The Place du Petit Sablon opposite is a small formal garden surrounded by 48 bronze statuettes representing the medieval guilds of Brussels.
A Brief History of Brussels
Brussels grew from a small settlement on an island in the Senne River, founded in the late 10th century. The city became the capital of the Duchy of Brabant and later the principal residence of the Habsburg governors of the Spanish Netherlands. By the 16th century it was one of the most important cities in northern Europe, a centre of luxury textile production and international trade.
The French bombardment of 1695 — ordered by Louis XIV’s marshal Villeroy in a punitive raid — destroyed most of the medieval lower town including the Grand Place’s original buildings. The remarkable speed of the reconstruction (four years for the new guild houses) and the exceptional quality of the result turned a catastrophe into an architectural legacy. Belgium declared independence from the Netherlands in 1830 after a revolution triggered partly by a performance of an opera about rebellion at the Brussels opera house.
Brussels became the de facto capital of the European Economic Community in 1958, a role that expanded with each subsequent treaty, and today it hosts the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, and the permanent secretariat of NATO. This international character has given the city an exceptionally diverse population and restaurant scene, particularly in neighbourhoods such as Ixelles and Saint-Gilles.
Practical Tips
Belgium uses the euro. Brussels is officially bilingual — French and Dutch — though in practice French predominates in the capital. English is widely spoken. Metro lines 1 and 5 serve the city centre from Gare Centrale; trams connect the centre to Ixelles, Saint-Gilles, and the European Quarter. The Grand Place is about 15 minutes’ walk from Gare Centrale. Chocolate shops in the city centre are numerous; the distinction between Belgian praline chocolates (Neuhaus invented the praline in 1912) and supermarket chocolate sold in souvenir shops is worth noting. Brussels Airport is about 25 minutes from the city centre by train.
Watch & Explore More
Watch the full Walking OZ video above to see Brussels’s guilded squares, arcaded galleries, and neighbourhood streets in crisp 4K. For more walking tours across Belgium and Europe, visit @walkingtoursvideoscom. You might also enjoy our walks through Ghent’s Graslei waterfront and Gravensteen Castle and the medieval canals of Bruges.