Explore Waterloo

The Wellington Museum occupies a former inn of 1705 in the centre of Waterloo, where the Duke of Wellington had his headquarters on the nights of 17 and 18 June 1815 and wrote his despatch on the victory. Its rooms present the campaign and the battle with weapons, prints and objects from the armies that fought, and it holds temporary exhibitions.

Memorial 1815 is the visitor centre of the Waterloo battlefield, south of the town in Braine-l'Alleud, opened in 2015 for the bicentenary of the battle of 18 June 1815. Its 2,000 m² exhibition shows uniforms, period objects, animated maps, a 33 m² model of the battle and a 4D film; its ticket also covers the Lion's Mound, the Panorama and Hougoumont.

The Panorama of the Battle of Waterloo is a rotunda built in 1912 to designs by Franz Van Ophem beside the Lion's Mound, on the battlefield south of the town in Braine-l'Alleud. Inside, Louis Dumoulin's circular painting, 110 metres long and 12 metres high, shows French cavalry charges of 18 June 1815; it shares the Memorial 1815 ticket.

The Lion's Mound is a 40-metre artificial hill on the Waterloo battlefield, south of the town in Braine-l'Alleud, completed in 1826 for King William I of the Netherlands where his son, the Prince of Orange, was wounded on 18 June 1815. 226 steps lead to the lion statue; it shares one ticket with the Memorial 1815 sites.

Hougoumont is a walled farm on the Waterloo battlefield, south of the town in Braine-l'Alleud, which Allied troops held against repeated French attacks throughout 18 June 1815. Restored for the bicentenary and reopened in 2015, it has four museum rooms and a 25-minute video show; it shares one ticket with the other Memorial 1815 sites.

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 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 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.

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 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.

Cinquantenaire Park is a 30-hectare public park in the European Quarter, created for the 1880 National Exhibition marking 50 years of Belgian independence. Its centrepiece is the triumphal arch completed in 1905, flanked by colonnades and halls that house the Art & History Museum, Autoworld and the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces.

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.

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 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 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 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.

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.

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.