BRUSSELS · BELGIUM
Beer halls, chocolatiers, and the train to Bruges.
Grand Place walking tours, lambic-cellar beer flights, chocolate workshops, and the one-hour rail north to Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp.
The Brussels Three
Chocolate, beer, waffles. Brussels invented or perfected each.
Day trips and bus tours exist in every European capital. These three don’t exist the way they do in Brussels. The praline, the lambic, the Liège waffle. Plan the rest of the trip around them.
From the bean
Belgian Chocolate, Bean to Bar
Belgium did not invent chocolate but it perfected the praline. Brussels chocolatiers temper their own couvertures, fill them by hand, and walk you through the technique above their shops. Pierre Marcolini, Mary, Neuhaus, Choco-Story — most are a five minute walk from the Grand Place.
- 1 Brussels: Belgian Chocolate Making Workshop with Tastings
- 2 Brussels: 2.5-Hour Belgian Chocolate Making Workshop
- 3 1.5h Belgian Chocolate Workshop in Brussels (bean to bar)
From the cellars
Trappist Beer & Lambic Cellars
Belgium pours beers that exist nowhere else on earth. Trappist ales brewed by monks under strict licence, lambics fermented with the wild yeast of the Senne valley, gueuze aged in oak. Brussels tastings move through styles by brewery, in cellars that have been pouring for a century.
- 1 Belgian Beer Tasting in Brussels
- 2 Brussels 2.5-Hour Belgian Beer Tasting Experience
- 3 Marc’s Brussels Beer Tasting Tour
From the iron
Brussels vs Liège Waffles
Two utterly different waffles share a country and an alphabet. Brussels: rectangular, light, eaten with toppings. Liège: round, dense, pearl sugar caramelised in the iron, eaten plain. The workshops put both batters in front of you so you can decide which Belgium you’re loyal to.
- 1 Brussels: Historical Walking Tour with Chocolate & Waffle Tasting
- 2 Brussels Walking and Tasting Tour (Beers,Chocolates&Fries/Waffle)
- 3 Brussels: Historical Tour with Chocolate & Waffle Tasting
First in Brussels
Start with the one travellers can’t stop booking.
If it’s your first day in Brussels, this is where everyone begins. The most-popular tour in our coverage, picked by traveller numbers.
The classics
Brussels’ Most Popular Tours
Atomium tickets, Grand Place walking tours, beer halls, and the day trip to Bruges. The Brussels every traveller sees.
Brussels as your base
Pick where to go next.
Brussels sits an hour from Bruges and Ghent on the high-speed rail, ninety minutes from Antwerp, two hours from Amsterdam and Luxembourg. Each makes a clean day out, then back to the bars by dinner.
By tour type
Or pick how you want to spend the day.
Walking tour for the Grand Place. Beer hall hop for an afternoon. Chocolate workshop for a hands-on hour. Bike tour for getting beyond the centre.
For your first day
Start with the Grand Place.
Walking tours of central Brussels — Grand Place, Galeries Royales, Manneken Pis, Mont des Arts. If we had to pick three for a first-time visitor, these are the ones we’d send them on.
Across the table
Food tours that double as a city walk.
Mussels, frites, chocolate, beer and Belgian endive — Brussels food tours move from market stall to brasserie to chocolatier as a walking route. Our shortlist for a first food tour.
The headline day trip
An hour north to Bruges.
Canals, belfries, swans on the Minnewater — Bruges does its medieval thing better than anywhere in Belgium. Three Bruges day trips we’d put on a first Belgian itinerary.
When the sun goes down
Brussels has a slower kind of evening.
Belgian beer is a sipping drink, and the bars in Brussels keep that pace — lambic cellars, art-deco brasseries, pub crawls that take their time. Three nights out we’d send a friend on.
Plan it
Brussels in 48 hours.
Two days, four stops. The route most first-time visitors land on once they’ve dug around for a day. A walking tour, a workshop, a beer cellar and the train to Bruges — in that order.
- 1 Day 1 · Morning Walk the Grand Place Two hours of guild halls, Manneken Pis and the gilded façades that make Brussels famous. See all 62 →
- 2 Day 1 · Afternoon Temper your own praline Ninety minutes above a Brussels chocolatier. Real couverture, real moulds, take some home. See all 9 →
- 3 Day 1 · Evening Lambic in a cellar A flight through Trappist, gueuze and fruit lambic. Brussels yeast you can’t taste anywhere else. See all 27 →
- 4 Day 2 Train to Bruges One hour up to canals, belfries and the medieval Brugge most travellers come to Belgium for. See all 25 →
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