Explore Dilbeek

Moated castle in Groot-Bijgaarden, Dilbeek, west of Brussels, seat of the lords of Bijgaarden since the 12th century. A 14th-century gatehouse and a 30-metre tower of 1347 survive beside brick Flemish Renaissance wings from after 1634. It is not a museum: the 14-hectare park opens for the Floralia flower show in spring and Pumpkimania in autumn.

The National Basilica of the Sacred Heart is a Catholic basilica on the Koekelberg plateau at the head of Elisabeth Park, the largest church in Belgium. Leopold II laid the first stone in 1905, but the two world wars delayed building until 1970. The Art Deco design by Albert Van Huffel has a green copper dome 89 metres high with a panorama gallery.

Manneken Pis is a 55.5-centimetre bronze fountain figure of a urinating boy at the corner of Rue de l'Étuve and Rue du Chêne, a few minutes' walk from the Grand-Place. It was made in 1619 by Jérôme Duquesnoy the Elder; since 1965 a replica stands here and the original is in the Brussels City Museum. The figure is regularly dressed in one of its roughly 1,000 costumes.

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.

Brussels Town Hall stands on the south side of the Grand-Place and is the only medieval building left on the square. It was built in stages between 1401 and 1455 in Brabantine Gothic, with a 96-metre tower topped by a statue of St. Michael. Visitors tour the ceremonial rooms with a video guide, and weekend guided tours climb the tower.

The Grand-Place is the central square of Brussels, 68 by 110 metres and fully paved, lined by the guildhalls of the city's former guilds, the Gothic Town Hall and the neo-Gothic King's House with the Brussels City Museum. Most houses were rebuilt after the French bombardment of 1695, and the square has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1998.

The View Brussels is a 55-metre ferris wheel on Place Poelaert beside the Palace of Justice, at the edge of the upper town. Built by Mondial in the Netherlands in 2015, it has 42 half-enclosed gondolas for eight people each, an audio commentary in every gondola and views over the Marolles and the city centre.

The Royal Saint-Hubert Galleries are three connected glass-roofed shopping arcades near the Grand-Place: the King's, Queen's and Princes' Galleries. Jean-Pierre Cluysenaar designed and built them in 1846–1847 with Italianate shopfronts under an arched cast-iron and glass roof. They hold shops, cafés, a cinema and a theatre.

The Mont des Arts is a terraced public garden and cultural complex between the Place Royale and the lower town, laid out under Leopold II and redesigned between 1956 and 1969. Its garden by René Pechère is framed by the Royal Library of Belgium and the Square convention centre, and its upper terrace looks over the old town to the Town Hall spire.

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 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 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 Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula is the Catholic co-cathedral of the Archdiocese of Mechelen–Brussels, dedicated to the city's two patron saints. Begun as a Romanesque church in the 11th century, it was largely completed in Brabantine Gothic by the 16th; inside are Baroque chapels, two pipe organs and 19th-century stained glass.

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 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 Royal Palace of Brussels is the official palace of the King of the Belgians, facing Brussels Park across the Place des Palais. Its core dates from the late 18th century and the present façade was added after 1900 under Leopold II. Each summer since 1965 visitors can tour the state rooms, including the Throne Room and the Mirror Room.

Mini-Europe is a miniature park in Bruparck at the foot of the Atomium, opened in 1989. It shows around 350 buildings from about 80 European cities at a scale of 1:25, with working models such as trains, mills and an erupting Vesuvius, and ends with Spirit of Europe, an interactive exhibition about the European Union.

The Atomium is a 102-metre structure on the Heysel Plateau in Laeken, built as the centrepiece of the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. Designed by the engineer André Waterkeyn and the architects André and Jean Polak, its nine steel-clad spheres model an iron crystal; six can be visited, with exhibitions and a view over the city from the top sphere.

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.

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.