Brussels gets written off as the grey, serious one, all EU office blocks and men in suits. Spend a day walking the old centre and that idea falls apart pretty fast. This is a city that paints its comic book heroes on the sides of buildings and dresses a tiny bronze boy in a new outfit several times a week. It also takes beer more seriously than most places take wine. And then there are the waffles, which I’d happily fly over for on their own.
This walk starts with the view from the Mont des Arts and drops downhill through the cathedral, Victor Horta’s comic museum and the glass-roofed Galeries to the Grand Place. After that it’s waffles at Maison Dandoy, Manneken Pis, a run of comic murals and the old stock exchange, before you finish in the alley outside Delirium Café with a beer list as thick as a phone book. It’s about 4.5km and a full day at a sensible pace. Flying in? I’d pre-book an airport transfer into Brussels so the bags are sorted, and you can line up Brussels tickets and beer tastings on GetYourGuide before you go. My Belgium travel guides cover the rest of the country.
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Brussels, Belgium Walking Tour: Quick Facts at a Glance
- Start point: The Mont des Arts, about 5 minutes' walk from Brussels-Central station
- End point: Delirium Café and Jeanneke Pis on the Impasse de la Fidélité, a few minutes from the Grand Place
- Distance: Around 4.5km (2.8 miles), more if you start chasing extra murals
- Walking time: 6 to 8 hours with the museum, a waffle stop and a beer or two. Give it the whole day
- Best for: Comic fans, beer lovers, first-timers and anyone with a sweet tooth
- Best time to go: April to June, or September and October. The Christmas market season is lovely too, just colder
- Best days: Tuesday to Saturday. The comic museum shuts on Mondays outside July and August
- Difficulty: Easy. Mostly downhill or flat, with cobbles almost the whole way
- Main sights: Mont des Arts, the cathedral, the Comic Art Museum, Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, the Grand Place, Manneken Pis, the comic murals, the Bourse, Saint-Géry, Sainte-Catherine and Delirium Café
- Tickets: Only the Comic Art Museum and Belgian Beer World charge entry. Everything else on the route is free to see
- Food/drink stop: Waffles at Maison Dandoy, frites near the Bourse and fish at Sainte-Catherine
- Map style: Free Google Map, pinned further down this article
Brussels Walking Tour
Brussels sits on two levels, with the upper town up round the palace and the big museums and the old lower town spread out round the Grand Place. Starting up top means almost the whole walk runs downhill or flat, which your legs will appreciate by the afternoon. Aim to be at the Mont des Arts for about 9.30am. That gets you to the comic museum for its 10am opening and the Grand Place before lunch, and it leaves the beer for the afternoon, where it belongs. Here on a Monday? Read the note at Stop 3 before you set off.
Stop 1: Mont des Arts (Start)
Distance from last stop: none, this is where you begin. It’s about 350m (5 minutes) up from Brussels-Central station. Time to spend: 20 to 30 minutes.
The Mont des Arts is the terraced garden between Brussels-Central station and Place Royale, and it’s the best free view in the city. Walk to the edge of the top terrace and the lower town spreads out below you, with the Town Hall spire on the Grand Place sticking up right in the middle (on a clear morning you can pick out the Atomium and the green dome of the Koekelberg Basilica too). King Leopold II flattened a whole neighbourhood here in the late 1890s for a grand arts quarter, and then the money ran out and the site sat half-finished for years. The tidy geometric garden you see now went in between the late 1950s and the 1960s, on top of a car park. It’s calm first thing, and a nice way to get your bearings before the day gets busy.
Things to do:
- Stand at the top of the steps for the view over the garden to the Town Hall spire
- Look for the Atomium and the Koekelberg Basilica on the skyline
- Catch the carillon clock on the archway at the side of the garden if you’re here on the hour
- Have a look at the Royal Library building, nicknamed the Albertina, along one side
- Grab a coffee near the station before you climb up, there’s not much at the top
Where to Stay in Brussels
Stop 2: Cathedral of St Michael and St Gudula
Distance from last stop: about 500m north-east across Boulevard de l’Impératrice, roughly 7 minutes. Time to spend: 20 to 30 minutes.
The cathedral is the big pale Gothic church on the slope above the station, with two square towers that look like someone forgot to finish them (they never got their spires). It took around 300 years to build, starting with the choir in the 1220s and wrapping up just before 1519, so the inside is a bit of a mix of styles. Belgium holds its royal weddings and state funerals here, but the main church is free to walk into and it’s usually quiet in the morning. The stained glass is what I’d come for, especially the huge Last Judgement window over the west doors, which dates from 1528. Give yourself a few minutes with the pulpit before you leave, too.
Things to do:
- Step inside and let your eyes adjust to the stained glass
- Find the Last Judgement window above the west entrance
- Look at the carved Baroque pulpit halfway down the nave
- Leave by Rue du Treurenberg and spot the Le Scorpion mural, your first comic wall of the day
Stop 3: Belgian Comic Strip Center (Comic Art Museum)
Distance from last stop: about 500m north down Rue du Treurenberg, roughly 7 minutes. Time to spend: 1.5 to 2 hours.
Belgians call comics the ninth art, and this is where they show them off properly. The museum calls itself the Comic Art Museum these days, though most people still know it as the Belgian Comic Strip Center, and it lives in a gorgeous art nouveau building by Victor Horta that opened in 1906 as the Waucquez textile department store. It’s the only one of Horta’s department stores still standing, and the entrance hall with its glass roof and big staircase is worth the trip even if comics aren’t your thing. Upstairs, the permanent collection walks you through Belgian comics from Hergé to Peyo, so Tintin and the Smurfs both get plenty of space, with a room for each of the big names. My favourite bit is the room of original drawn pages, where you can see the pencil lines and corrections up close.
Things to do:
- Stop in the entrance hall and look up at Horta’s glass roof before you buy a ticket
- Work through the permanent collection, Tintin and the Smurfs included
- Find the room of original comic pages
- Browse the Slumberland bookshop on the ground floor
- Grab a coffee in the brasserie downstairs if you need a sit-down
Stop 4: Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert
Distance from last stop: about 600m south via Rue du Marais and Rue d’Arenberg into the King’s Gallery, roughly 8 minutes. Time to spend: 30 to 45 minutes.
The Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert opened in 1847 and get called the first proper public covered shopping arcades in Europe. There are three sections (the King’s Gallery, the Queen’s Gallery and the smaller Princes’ Gallery) under a long arched glass roof on a fine cast-iron frame, and on a wet Brussels day, of which there are plenty, half the city seems to end up in here. It’s chocolate territory, with Neuhaus and a handful of other chocolatiers lined up along the shopfronts, and there are old cafes, a cinema and a theatre tucked in between. Tintin fans might like to know that the theatre is where a Tintin stage play premiered in 1941. Walk it slowly, because the shop windows are half the fun.
Things to do:
- Walk the whole length and look up at the glass roof
- Buy a few pralines at Neuhaus, where the praline was born
- Detour two minutes to Rue de l’Écuyer for the Gaston mural
- Clock where À la Mort Subite is, just round the corner, for a beer later
- Duck into one of the gallery cafes if the weather’s turned
Stop 5: Grand Place
Distance from last stop: about 250m out of the Queen’s Gallery and down Rue de la Colline, roughly 3 minutes. Time to spend: 45 minutes to 1 hour.
Come in off Rue de la Colline, past the Tintin shop at number 13, and the Grand Place hits you all at once. It’s a huge cobbled square wrapped in gilded guildhalls, with the Gothic Town Hall and its 96-metre spire on one side and the King’s House facing it. Most of it is younger than it looks. In 1695 a French army under Marshal Villeroy bombarded the city and flattened nearly everything here except the Town Hall’s stone shell, and the guilds rebuilt the whole square in about four years. Victor Hugo lived in one of the houses for a while in 1852, and UNESCO listed the square in 1998. Come back after dark too, when the facades are lit up and the day-trippers have gone home.
Things to do:
- Pop into the Tintin shop on Rue de la Colline on your way in
- Stand in the middle and turn slowly, because every guildhall facade is different
- Find the gilded Saint Michael on top of the Town Hall spire
- Visit the Brussels City Museum in the King’s House, home of the original Manneken Pis
- Rub the Everard t’Serclaes statue under the arcade on the corner of Rue Charles Buls
Stop 6: Waffles, Tintin & Manneken Pis
Distance from last stop: about 350m down Rue Charles Buls and Rue de l’Étuve, roughly 5 minutes. Time to spend: 45 minutes to 1 hour, sit-down waffle included.
Rue Charles Buls runs off the corner of the Grand Place, and this is where you have your first waffle. Maison Dandoy has been baking in Brussels since 1829, and its tearoom does a proper Brussels waffle, rectangular and light and crisp, served on a plate with whatever you can justify on top. Then carry on down Rue de l’Étuve. There’s a big Tintin mural on the way, a scene lifted from The Calculus Affair, and a few steps further down you reach the man himself. Manneken Pis is tiny (55.5cm, and everyone says the same thing when they see him) and the one on the corner is a replica, because the 17th-century original is tucked away in the City Museum you’ve just walked past. He gets dressed up several times a week from a wardrobe of around 1,000 costumes, and my guide to Manneken Pis and his legends has the full story.
Things to do:
- Order a Brussels waffle in the Dandoy tearoom, or a Liège one to eat on the move
- Pick up a packet of Dandoy’s speculoos biscuits for later
- Find the Tintin mural on Rue de l’Étuve
- See if Manneken Pis is in costume today
- Pop into GardeRobe MannekenPis on Rue du Chêne to see some of his outfits
Stop 7: Comic Murals of Rue du Marché au Charbon
Distance from last stop: about 250m west along Rue des Grands Carmes, roughly 4 minutes. Time to spend: 20 to 30 minutes.
Brussels started painting comic strips onto its walls in 1991, and the very first one was Broussaille by Frank Pé, right here on the corner of Rue du Marché au Charbon and Rue des Teinturiers. The Comic Book Route now runs to more than 50 murals, mostly inside the old centre, and this junction is a good place to see why people get hooked on hunting them down. There’s a story behind Broussaille, too. People first read it as two men walking arm in arm, and when it was repainted in 1999 one of the figures was made to look more like a woman, which caused quite a row. Across the junction is Victor Sackville, a British spy arriving in Brussels, and a minute away on Rue du Bon Secours the reporter Ric Hochet is halfway up the side of a building.
Things to do:
- Find Broussaille, the first mural on the whole route
- Spot Victor Sackville on the other side of the junction
- Walk round the corner to Rue du Bon Secours for Ric Hochet
- Save the city’s comic book route map on your phone and tick off a few more as you go
Stop 8: The Bourse & Belgian Beer World
Distance from last stop: about 300m north, roughly 5 minutes. Time to spend: 1.5 to 2 hours with the beer experience, 15 minutes without.
The Bourse is the old stock exchange, a huge columned building put up between 1868 and 1873, and these days it’s home to Belgian Beer World. You follow a route through galleries and installations about how Belgium brews, with a small tasting partway round, and finish with a full glass in the rooftop bar looking out over the centre. It’s touristy, I won’t pretend otherwise, but it’s well done and a good warm-up for the proper bars later. Not fussed about the exhibition? You can walk into the grand central hall for free, and the rooftop also works as a normal bar. Out front the boulevard is pedestrianised, so the Bourse steps are a good place to sit with a cone of frites and watch Brussels go by. If you’d rather drink with a guide, Brussels beer tasting tours on Viator take you round a few bars with the stories thrown in.
Things to do:
- Do the Belgian Beer World route and claim your rooftop glass
- Walk into the central hall for a free look at the building
- Get a cone of frites from Fritland on Rue Henri Maus, a few metres away
- Sit on the Bourse steps and people-watch for a bit
Stop 9: Saint-Géry & Place Sainte-Catherine
Distance from last stop: about 200m to Place Saint-Géry, then 450m on to Place Sainte-Catherine, roughly 10 minutes in total. Time to spend: 45 minutes to 1 hour.
Place Saint-Géry is where Brussels is supposed to have begun, on a little island in the river Senne with a church on it. The island is long gone, but the square still has the Halles Saint-Géry, an iron-and-glass market hall from the early 1880s with an old stone obelisk fountain inside, and there’s a small food market on the ground floor now. Look up on your way out for the Néron mural on the corner. Then wander north to Place Sainte-Catherine, the old fish market area, where the seafood restaurants still cluster round the church. For a cheap lunch or late snack eaten standing up, Noordzee (Mer du Nord) on the corner does fish soup and grilled seafood at high tables outside, and it’s usually busy with locals.
Things to do:
- Step inside the Halles Saint-Géry for the fountain and the food stalls
- Find the Néron mural on the square
- Have fish soup or grilled scampi standing up at Noordzee
- Try frites with an unusual topping at Frites Atelier on Rue Sainte-Catherine
- Pop into the church of Sainte-Catherine on the square
Stop 10: Delirium Café & Jeanneke Pis (Finish)
Distance from last stop: about 800m east via Rue Sainte-Catherine, Rue du Marché aux Poulets and Rue des Bouchers, roughly 11 minutes. Time to spend: as long as your liver allows.
The last stretch takes you along Rue des Bouchers, a narrow lane of restaurants with waiters out front waving menus at you, so smile and keep walking. Halfway along, the tiny Impasse de la Fidélité ducks off to the side. At the end of it, behind railings, squats Jeanneke Pis, the girl version of Manneken Pis, who was put there in 1987 and is a lot less famous (I suspect she doesn’t mind). Opposite her is Delirium Café, which landed a Guinness World Record for the number of beers on offer soon after it opened and still has more than 2,000 on the list. The pink elephant on the sign comes from Delirium Tremens, the beer it’s named after, and the place gets loud and packed after dark, which is sort of the point. You’re only a few minutes from the Grand Place and Brussels-Central here, so getting home is easy.
Things to do:
- Find Jeanneke Pis at the end of the alley
- Work through the Delirium beer list and pick something you’ve never heard of
- Start with a Delirium Tremens if the list leaves you frozen
- Wander back to the Grand Place to see the facades lit up at night
- Walk home to Brussels-Central, roughly 7 minutes away
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Where To Stay For This Brussels Walking Tour
Central Brussels is compact, so anywhere inside the old ring road (the Pentagon, as locals call it) keeps you within walking distance of this route. What changes is the noise at night and how much you pay to be near the Grand Place. These are the areas I’d pick from.
Grand Place and the Îlot Sacré: Best for first-timers who want the Grand Place on the doorstep, and you’ll pay a bit extra for it. The lanes get noisy at night. The Rocco Forte Hotel Amigo, just off the square, even has a Tintin-themed suite if you want to go all in.
Saint-Géry and Dansaert: My pick for this walk. You’re right by Stops 8 and 9, with good bars and independent shops around Rue Antoine Dansaert, and it feels more local than the streets round the Grand Place.
Mont des Arts and the Sablon: The quieter upper town, close to the start of the walk and the big art museums. The Sablon is chocolate country, and there’s an antiques market on the square at weekends.
Near Brussels-Midi: Handy if you’re arriving or leaving on the Eurostar and want cheaper rooms. It’s not the nicest area after dark, but it’s one short train hop from Brussels-Central.
Pit Stops & Side Detours
The main route is already a full day, but some of the best bits of Brussels sit just off it. Tack these onto the nearest stop rather than making separate trips of them.
- À la Mort Subite: Round the corner from the Galeries on Rue Montagne-aux-Herbes-Potagères. It took its name in 1928 from a dice game the regulars played, where the deciding round was called mort subite (sudden death), and the long room of mirrors and wood panelling feels like it’s barely changed since.
- Toone: Brussels’ old puppet theatre, through a low archway off Rue du Marché aux Herbes, a couple of minutes from the Grand Place. The little bar downstairs has marionettes hanging off the walls and lambic on tap, and it opens from around noon, Wednesday to Sunday.
- Cantillon Brewery: About 20 minutes’ walk south-west of the Bourse in Anderlecht. It’s been a family lambic brewery since 1900, still making spontaneously fermented beer the old way, and you can do a self-guided visit. It’s closed on Wednesdays and Sundays, so check before you set off.
- Moeder Lambic Fontainas: A short walk south of the Bourse on Place Fontainas, with a long draught list of lambic and Belgian craft beer, including some you’ll rarely find outside the breweries.
- Tintin at Brussels-Midi: Coming in on the Eurostar? There’s a Tintin fresco in the station, and right outside it the Le Lombard building has Tintin and Snowy busts on show.
- Bruges and Ghent: Both are under an hour away by train, so compare train times to Bruges and Ghent on Omio and see my 7-day Belgium itinerary for how they fit together.
- Skip: The Atomium on the same day as this walk. It’s out in Heysel, a metro ride north of the centre, and it deserves a morning of its own.
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Browse the shopLocal Eats Worth Chasing
Brussels does comfort food brilliantly, and most of the good stuff is cheap if you don’t mind eating it standing up. My guide to the best Belgian waffles and Belgian food guide go deeper, but these are the things I’d hunt down between stops.
- A Brussels waffle at Maison Dandoy: The sit-down waffle at Stop 6. Strawberries and cream is the classic, and nobody will judge you for going bigger.
- A Liège waffle from a street stall: Warm and sticky with caramelised pearl sugar. Eat it plain, while it’s still hot.
- Frites: Fritland on Rue Henri Maus by the Bourse is the handy one, and Frites Atelier on Rue Sainte-Catherine does fancier toppings. If you end up near the EU quarter, Maison Antoine on Place Jourdan lets you take your cone into the cafes on the square.
- Pralines and speculoos: Neuhaus in the Galeries for pralines, and Dandoy for a packet of spiced speculoos biscuits to take home (if they last that long).
- Fish at Sainte-Catherine: Fish soup or grilled scampi at the high tables outside Noordzee, with a glass of white.
- Gueuze and lambic: The sour, funky Brussels beers. Try them at Moeder Lambic Fontainas or À la Mort Subite rather than the first bar you see.
Walking Tour Essentials
Brussels is easy to walk, though the cobbles and the weather both catch people out. Get these sorted and the day goes a lot more smoothly.
- Comfortable shoes: The lower town is almost all cobbles. Trainers or proper walking shoes, not the new boots you were saving for the trip.
- A rain layer: It rains a lot here, at pretty much any time of year, so pack a light waterproof. The Galeries make a handy dry stretch if it chucks it down, and my guide to the best time to visit Brussels goes through the seasons.
- Tickets: The Comic Art Museum and Belgian Beer World are the only paid stops, and both are easy to book online. Have a look at Brussels chocolate and beer tours on GetYourGuide if you fancy adding a guided tasting.
- Brussels Card: It bundles public transport with free entry to a long list of museums, so it can pay off if you're doing more than this walk. Check what's covered before you buy it.
- Pickpocket sense: The Grand Place, the Bourse and the metro are the usual spots for bags going walkabout. Keep your phone in a zipped pocket, and my guides to travel theft and scams cover the common tricks. I've also rounded up the anti-theft travel gear worth packing.
- Data for maps: You'll want working data for the mural hunt and your museum tickets. An Airalo eSIM for Belgium is the quickest way to sort it without hunting for a local SIM.
- Offline map: Save the free Google Map further down this article before you head out. Seeing more of the country? My Ultimate Belgium Google Map Legend has the rest pinned for you.
- Travel insurance: Cobbles and Belgian beer aren't the best combination for ankles. I'd sort travel insurance with VisitorsCoverage before you go rather than hope it all goes fine.
- Flight delays: If your flight in or out is delayed or cancelled, you might be owed money under EU and UK rules. Before you shrug it off, see if you can claim flight compensation through CompensAIR.
- Water: Brussels tap water is safe to drink, so carry a bottle and refill it, especially once the beer stops start.
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