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Maison Autrique
Hortas 1893 house shows little luxury or extravagance, but many design elements hint at the art-nouveau wave that was about to sweep Brussels to architectural glory. It hosts regularly changing exhibitions and the website offers an interesting downloadable walking guide to the neig
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Death Cell
Good old Pops also had a more sinister side... as a place of execution for wartime deserters. Hidden behind a red door in the north side of the stadhuis you can still see the chilling original shooting post and the stone-walled death cell where deserters spent their last night. Bro
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Maison du Roi
This fanciful feast of neo-Gothic arches, verdigris statues and mini-spires is bigger, darker and nearly 200 years younger than the surrounding guildhalls. Once a medieval bread market, the current masterpiece is an 1873 rebuild and nowadays houses the Brussels City Museum , whose
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L’Arbre d’Or
Notice the hop plants climbing columns here! At the former brewers guildhall, which is still the Belgian brewers’ headquarters, two atmospheric but small basement rooms house a cursory Brewery Museum . Entry includes a beer, which can be supped amid barrels and delightfully antiqua
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Vrijdagmarkt
Once the city’s forum for public meetings and executions, this large square is named for the Friday market (still held). Tempting cafés sit beneath step-gabled facades surveyed by a grand statue of Jacob van Artevelde , Ghents 14th-century anti-French leader. A block west notice th
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Het Steen
On a riverside knoll, Het Steen is a dinky but photogenic castle dating from 1200 and occupying the site of Antwerp’s original Gallo-Roman settlement. Outside is a humorous statue of Lange Wapper , a tall folkloric ‘peeping Tom’ figure showing off his codpiece to two diminutive onl
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MNHA
Startlingly modern for its Old Town setting, this unusual museum offers a fascinating coverage of art and history. It starts deep in an excavated rocky basement with exhibits of Neolithic flints, then sweeps you somewhat unevenly through Gallic tomb chambers, Roman mosaics and Napo
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Hôtel de Ville
At night the 1719 City Hall glows lugubriously in its blood-red spotlights. By day it commands Liège’s charming, if modestly sized, original main square, Place du Marché, where trees shelter two elegant well-fountains and a series of street cafes beneath a fine row of traditional h
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Lillo
When the vast Kanaldok (port extension) was built in the 1960s, seven villages were bulldozed to make space. Of most, just an isolated church tower or windmill remains. One exception is the two-street village of Lillo, population 40, which has been preserved within a Scheldt-side f
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Stella Artois
There are two tour options at this world-famous, highly automated brewery. Book online at least two days ahead if possible: choose ‘last minute’ and find a slot according to the flagged language of the available tours. Alternatively, from May to October, 90-minute tours in English
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Sint
Marred by several new constructions, the Sint-Agnesbegijnhof, 1km northeast of the centre via Plankstraat, is not an especially memorable begijnhof , but its unique in that it has retained a begijn farmstead. The central, barnlike 1258 Begijnhofkerk is renowned for a gruesome medie
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Hill 62 Museum
This gnome-fronted, surreally ordinary house displays a chaotic hotchpotch of WWI helmets, shoes, guns and harrowing photos, some in antiquated wooden stereoscopic viewers. The main attempted justification for the hefty entrance fee is a string of ‘original trenches’ in the woodlan
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Parc de Bruxelles
Brussels is well endowed with outlying forests and parklands, but in the inner city its a different story. The largest central patch of greenery is the Parc de Bruxelles, an old, formal park flanked by the Palais Royal and the Palais de la Nation. Laid out under the auspices of the
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Museum voor Volkskunde
The appealling Museum voor Volkskunde presents visitors with 18 themed tableaux illustrating Flemish life in times gone by (a 1930s sweetshop, a hatter’s workshop, a traditional kitchen etc). It’s a static affair, but the setting is an attractive godshuis, and the time-warp museum
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L’Étoile
The square’s smallest building, surmounted by a star, is where city hero Everard ‘t Serclaes died in 1388. A fairly contemporary ‘tradition’ claims you’ll garner good luck by rubbing a 1902 brass statue of Everard’s reclining corpse. The statue adorns the house’s arcaded north wall
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STAM
Shoehorned into a 17th-century former nunnery-hospital complex, this satisfying 21st-century museum does a very thorough job of explaining Ghents evolution over 70,000 years of history. A giant satellite image vividly illustrates the vast extent of the docks, and you could spend ho
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Nationaal Jenevermuseum
Hasselt has been at the centre of the jenever (gin) industry since the 17th century, and this beautifully restored 19th-century distillery houses a comprehensive and well-presented museum on the history of jenever and its distilling process, as well as producing 1000 bottles of jen
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Maagdenhuis
Now a gallery of precious religious art, the Maagdenhuis was an orphanage and child refuge from 1553 to 1882 and also houses some fascinating objects from this time, including a collection of majolica (glazed ceramic) porridge bowls. Notice a few cut playing cards? They were snippe
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Bois de la Cambre
This extensive forest park forms Brussels’ green lungs. It stretches from regal Ave Louise to the Forêt de Soignes, whose soaring beech trees then extend all the way to Waterloo. Established in 1862, the park has lawns, playgrounds, a ‘pocket’ theatre, a roller-skating rink and an
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Château de Bourscheid
From a distance, this splendid castle ruin is surely the nation’s most dramatic. As you get closer, the degree of degradation is much clearer but it’s still very interesting to clamber about the wall stubs. Admission includes a remarkably extensive audio guide and there’s a trio of
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