Explore Brussels

Belgian Beer World is a beer museum that opened in September 2023 in the upper floors of the Bourse, the former Brussels Stock Exchange built in 1868–1873 on Boulevard Anspach. Interactive rooms cover the history of Belgian beer and how it is brewed, and the tour ends with a tasting at the rooftop bar.

The Musical Instruments Museum holds a collection of close to 10,000 instruments from Europe and the rest of the world. Since 2000 it has occupied the Old England building, an Art Nouveau department store built by Paul Saintenoy in 1899, and the adjoining 18th-century neoclassical building by Barnabé Guimard on the Mont des Arts.

The Magritte Museum is devoted to the surrealist painter René Magritte and is part of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. Opened in 2009, it occupies an 18th-century neoclassical building on the Place Royale and shows paintings, drawings, sculptures, posters, photographs and films by Magritte across several floors.

The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium are a group of federal art museums on the Mont des Arts, whose collection covers painting and sculpture from the 15th century onward. The Old Masters Museum, in a building by Alphonse Balat on the Rue de la Régence, shows works by Rogier van der Weyden, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Rubens and Jordaens.

The BELvue Museum presents the history of Belgium since 1830 in the Hôtel Belle-Vue, an 18th-century neoclassical townhouse between the Place Royale and the Place des Palais, next to the Royal Palace. Run by the King Baudouin Foundation, it treats themes such as democracy, migration and language, alongside a gallery of more than 200 objects.

The Parlamentarium is the European Parliament's visitor centre, opened in 2011 in the Espace Léopold complex on the Parliament's esplanade. A multimedia exhibition with a personal guide in the 24 official EU languages explains how the Parliament and the other EU institutions work, with a 360-degree cinema and an interactive floor map of Europe.

The House of European History is a museum set up by the European Parliament and opened in 2017 in the former Eastman Dental Hospital in Leopold Park. Its permanent exhibition on five floors follows the history of Europe, chiefly in the 19th and 20th centuries, through objects, documents and multimedia, alongside temporary exhibitions.

The Horta Museum occupies the house and studio that the architect Victor Horta built for himself in Saint-Gilles between 1898 and 1901. Its Art Nouveau rooms keep his furniture, light fittings and door handles, and since 2000 the house has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List with three other Horta town houses.

The Art & History Museum, called the Cinquantenaire Museum until 2018, fills a wing of the palace complex in the Parc du Cinquantenaire. Its collections, moved here from the Halle Gate from 1889, cover Belgian archaeology, non-European civilisations and European decorative arts; the classical antiquities galleries are closed for renovation.

Autoworld is a car museum in the South Hall of the Cinquantenaire complex, an iron-and-glass exhibition hall in the Parc du Cinquantenaire. It displays more than 300 cars and motorcycles from the late 19th century to today, with a focus on early and Belgian-built vehicles such as Minervas and limousines of the Belgian royal family.

Train World is the museum of the Belgian national railway company SNCB, set in the restored Schaerbeek station building and a new hall beside it. Opened in 2015 with scenography by the comics artist François Schuiten, it shows 22 locomotives and some 1,200 other objects, among them the 1845 Pays de Waes steam engine, and a driving simulator.

Design Museum Brussels occupies 5,000 square metres in the Trade Mart beside the Atomium. Opened in 2015 as the Art & Design Atomium Museum and renamed in 2020, it shows the Plastic Design Collection of plastic furniture and objects from the 1960s to the 2000s, a permanent display of Belgian design, and temporary exhibitions.