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Whether you want to admire Brussels' historic monuments, discover its museums or try the local gastronomy, there is always something to see or do in the capital of Europe!   

An industrial district reborn as a trendy and sustainable neighbourhood

Dansaert and Sainte-Catherine

Trendy, lively neighbourhoods

The European Quarter

Brussels’s cosmopolitan (and cultural!) district

Get moving, your way

Public transport.

Train, tram, bus or metro: get around the city easily and quickly.

Day or night, grab a taxi and go wherever you want.

Electric or classic, get on a bike to discover the city in the fresh air!

Carpool or rent an electric scooter. Take a ride on a Tootbus or a boat.

Practical info

Public holidays and opening hours

Money, currency and exchange

Emergencies and security

Mobile phone, Internet and Wifi

Maps & Brochures

Useful apps

Arriving in brussels.

All roads lead to Brussels. Plane, train, bus, car: the European capital is ultra-accessible!

Book a free Brussels Greeter to explore the capital with a local!

Brussels Greeters are volunteers passionate about the Belgian capital. They offer unusual and fascinating tours in a relaxed atmosphere... and it's completely free!

Info and tips for a pleasant stay

Greeters - top tips from maria.

You just arrived in Brussels and need some help finding activities? Maria, our Spanish expatriate and Greeter is here for you with her top tips !

About Brussels

Welcome to Brussels, the capital of the Kingdom of Belgium and of Europe. It is the heart of the European Union.

Cats in Brussels' museums

Benevolent spirits for some, the devil incarnate for others, emblematic symbols of freedom and independence par excellence... cats have transcended the ages and artistic styles with their characteristic casual elegance.

Brussels’ most extraordinary museums

What if, to change things up a bit, you treated yourself to a visit of a with an original or even unusual atmosphere? This is your chance to make some new discoveries in some fascinating locations !

Historic Brussels

Brussels has always occupied a strategic location. On one side there was marshland and hills and lowlands on the other. The capital of Europe gradually grew in between these two areas.

Brutalism: six gems for fans of architecture

Brussels has its fair share of impressive architecture. Here are some of the most beautiful brutalist spots in the capital, for those who are in need of a contemporary architecture fix.

Find your nearest tourist information office

At visit.brussels, we know Brussels like the back of our hands! Want our best tips for an unforgettable stay? Then visit one of our tourist information offices.

Brussels Card

 The best way to easily discover Brussels!

Free access to 49 Brussels museums

Discounts at attractions, shops, restaurants, bars and guided tours

Free information guide, city map and museum map

Optional: unlimited access to public transport, hop on hop off buses Tootbus and entry to the Atomium

Welcome to Belgium! We're delighted that you have chosen us for your next holiday.

Discover our surprising regions and let yourself be seduced by all Wallonia, Brussels & Flanders has to offer.

Select your destination and start your discovery. Have a great trip!

VISITWallonia

Avenue Comte de Smet de Nayer 14, 5000 Namur

+ 32 81 84 41 00

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visitwallonia.be

Tourist Office for Flanders - Brussels

Grasmarkt 61, 1000 Brussel

+32 2 504 03 00

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www.visitflanders.com

Brussels Tourist Agency

Rue Royale 2-4, 1000 Bruxelles

+32 2 513 89 40

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visit.brussels

Shutterstock / Koverninska Olga

Historic yet hip, bureaucratic yet bizarre, self-confident yet unshowy, Brussels is multicultural to its roots.

Best Time to Visit

Best things to do, attractions, must-see attractions.

Old England Building

This 1899 former department store is an art nouveau showpiece with a black facade aswirl with wrought iron and arched windows. The building contains the…

Grand Place

Brussels’ magnificent Grand Place is one of the world’s most unforgettable urban ensembles. Oddly hidden, the enclosed cobblestone square is only revealed…

Strap on a pair of headphones, then step on the automated floor panels in front of the precious instruments (including world instruments and Adolphe Sax’s…

Musée Horta

The typically austere exterior doesn’t give much away, but Victor Horta’s former home (designed and built 1898–1901) is an art nouveau jewel. The…

St-Gilles Town Hall

One of Brussels’ overlooked architectural wonders, this splendid Napoleon III–style palace

Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts

This prestigious museum incorporates the Musée d’Art Ancien (ancient art); the Musée d’Art Moderne (modern art), with works by surrealist Paul Delvaux and…

Parc du Cinquantenaire

Parc du Cinquantenaire was built during Léopold II's reign. It's best known for its cluster of museums – art, history, military and motor vehicles – which…

Institut des Sciences Naturelles

Thought-provoking and highly interactive, this museum has far more than the usual selection of stuffed animals. But the undoubted highlight is a unique …

Top picks from our travel experts

13 classic experiences to have in brussels.

Poechenellekelder

Despite facing Brussels’ kitsch central, this is a surprisingly appealing café full of genuine old puppets. It offers a great selection of fairly priced…

Place du Jeu-de-Balle Flea Market

The quintessential Marolles experience is haggling at this chaotic flea market, established in 1919. Weekends see it at its liveliest, but for the best…

Jeanneke Pis

Squatting just off Rue des Bouchers, this pigtailed female counterpart of Manneken Pis is the work of sculptor Denis Adrien Debouvrie, who installed her…

Cantillon Brewery

Beer lovers shouldn’t miss this unique living brewery-museum. Atmospheric and family run, it’s Brussels’ last operating lambic brewery and still uses much…

Manneken Pis

Rue Charles Buls – Brussels’ most unashamedly touristy shopping street, lined with chocolate and trinket shops – leads the hordes three blocks from the…

Délirium Café

This café's barrel tables, beer-tray ceilings and over 2000 world beers were already impressive. Now they’ve added a rum garden, a tap house and the…

In the old Bruxellois dialect, zinneke means ‘a person of mixed origins’, which sums up the city’s inhabitants to this day. Hence Flemish sculptor Tom…

Africa Museum

Due to reopen in late 2018 after five years of restoration, the revived Africa Museum looks set to be a big draw, and a world away from its earlier dusty…

The best of Brussels on a budget

Palais de Justice

Larger than St Peter’s in Rome, this 2.6-hectare complex of law courts was the world’s biggest building when it was constructed (1866–83). While the…

Church of St-Pierre & St-Guidon

The church has some original murals and was once a major pilgrimage site: right up until WWI, cart drivers and those suffering fits would arrive here to…

Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinée

This centre offers a definitive and enjoyable overview of the country’s vibrant comic-strip culture. Even if you’re not excited by the ‘ninth art’, do…

Erasmus House Museum

Anderlecht was still a country village when world-famous humanist Erasmus came to ‘play at farming’ in 1521. The lovely brick home where he stayed for…

Planning Tools

Expert guidance to help you plan your trip.

Things to Know

Brussels is an incredible city and we've got some excellent tips to help your first visit go smoothly. Here's what you need to know before you go.

Best Neighborhoods

To get a good feel for this underrated European capital, base yourself in one of these five neighborhoods.

Here are our favorite storybook castles, oh-so-cool cities, and cross-border curios all within easy reach of Brussels.

Transportation

Navigating Brussels' multiple languages and complex public transport system will be no problem with these tips for getting around the Belgian capital.

Free Things to Do

Put these free things to do on your Belgium itinerary and see more for less.

Latest stories from Brussels

Train Travel

Feb 29, 2024 • 2 min read

Passengers can travel from Brussels to Prague (and even link up with London) on a cross-border night train service.

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Book popular activities in Brussels

brussels .info

Welcome to brussels belgium.

As the centre of European culture and institutions, Brussels has much more to offer than most people imagine. Apart from its famous chocolates and beers, there are almost 90 museums, beautiful parks, architecture, bars and much more. Look around our website to learn more.

Airport to city transfer

There are two airports close to Brussels city. Zaventem (12 km away) and Charleroi (55 km away). You can get in between these airports and the city by train, bus, taxi and personal car. We provide info on all of these transportation options .

Brussels accommodation

We provide information about accommodation availability and prices for all kinds of Brussels lodging types. Hotels, hostels, apartments, near-airport or luxury accommodation.

Brussels attractions

Sightseeing Brussels is best during the day so that in the evening you can enjoy atmospheric restaurants and bars. Brussels is safe and people are cultured so walking around is a pleasure. But the best way to travel between Brussels attractions is the well-known Hop-on Hop-off Bus .

Guided tours

For the traveler who wants to see the sights with some company and interesting facts and tips from the guide. There are guided sightseeing and thematic tours available. Most of them have multilingual guides who speak English, French, German and Dutch.

Brussels card

Definitely worth buying. You get free entry to museums and attractions, free public transport and discounts at guided tours, shops, restaurants and bars. Instead of buying and organizing many tickets, Brussels city pass is a simple solution for €32.

Chocolate and Beer

These delicious things are what Belgium is known for. And what you should not miss. Read more about what and where: Chocolate or Beer in Brussels.

International institutions

Belgium as a whole might be known best for its chocolate and beer, but Brussels itself is most often mentioned in connection with the European Union and other international institutions . Learn the basics on our informative pages.

20 Best Things to Do in Brussels

Jorg Greuel / Getty Images

From some of the world's favorite comic strips to the best chocolate on the planet, Belgium's capital offers something to enjoy for every type of traveler. And while the city can often seem somewhat business-oriented, it's also home to a thriving nightlife as well as a rich landscape of cultural and historical attractions welcoming guests of all ages.

Whether you're stopping by the Grand-Place to browse goods from local merchants or eating some of the country's best chocolates at Choco-Story, no trip to Brussels, Belgium, is complete without visiting one of these top attractions.

See How European Parliament Really Works

Laura Zulian Photography / Getty Images

Did you know Brussels is officially the capital of Belgium and Europe? It's also home to the Hemicycle , where European Parliament members gather to hold important debates and historic votes that affect everyone who lives in the European Union (EU).

Admission to the Hemicycle and nearby Parlamentarium —the official visitor's center of European Parliament, where you can learn about the Members and the major issues they're dealing with via interactive exhibits—is free, though you must reserve a spot ahead of time online. While the ability to sit in on plenary sessions is no longer possible, you can still download the multimedia guide and make your way around the Hemicycle at your own pace or join in on a 60-minute guided talk. You'll have to deal with airport-level security to enter, so pack your day bag accordingly (bring your I.D. and leave anything remotely questionable at the hotel).

Free 90-minute guided walking tours that lead you around the exterior of the buildings are also available during the spring and summer if you'd rather hear more about the history of European Parliament and the people who made it possible. You'll start by meeting at Station Europe in the old Place du Luxembourg train station before walking along the Esplanade Solidarność 1980 and ending the tour in Leopold Park, home to the House of European History , which is also free and worth a visit.

Discover the History Behind Modern Medicine

Le Musée de la Médecine Brussels

Both macabre and educational, Le Musée de la Médecine (the Museum of Medicine) offers exhibits about the many ways people have tried to stay healthy since the earliest days of human history, whether by praying to immortal beings or focusing on the latest surgical advancements.

The museum also houses a collection of medical books dating back to the 16th century, more than 1,500 medicinal objects (which are said to be the oldest in Europe), and more than 300 anatomical wax figures so you can get a better look at what goes on inside the human body.

Get Your Fill of Belgian Waffles

TripSavvy / Gautier Houba

If enormous waffles covered in sweet treats come to mind when you think of Belgium, you're not alone. What you may not realize, after seeing Belgian waffles made all over the world, is that the locals here typically only eat them with a dusting of powdered sugar instead of all the toppings you're probably used to.

Traditionally, they're made either light and fluffy (Brussels Waffles) or thicker and crunchier (Liege Waffles) and aren't eaten for breakfast, but as a sweet snack any time of day. Head to Maison Dandoy's tea room , where you can try them local-style or with a variety of fruit and ice cream toppings.

Feast on Delicious Belgian Chocolate

Lonely Planet / Getty Images

As you probably know, Belgium is famous around the world for its rich chocolates. Learn everything you always wanted to about the delicate treat at the Choco-Story Museum , which offers a look at some truly extraordinary sculptures—made of chocolate, of course!—as well as demonstrations of the subtle art of chocolate-making.

Once you're suitably knowledgeable in the craft, it’s time to do some serious chocolate buying. If you’re willing to splurge, try Pierre Marcolini , where the owner chooses the unprocessed cocoa beans used in his confectionary treats personally. This master of the art has various stores in Brussels, but for a centrally located and well-stocked store option, head to 1 Rue des Minimes, where the delicious taste combinations are sure to impress.

You can also visit the shop where members of the Belgian royal family have been indulging their sweet teeth since 1919. Mary  is unashamedly old-fashioned and elegant, making it the premier place in Brussels to buy gilded, decorative gift boxes. The only problem will be getting them home without devouring the lot!

Toast to Brussels' Legendary Beer Scene

Take a tour of some of Brussels' many breweries to sample all of the latest batches of Belgian brews. In the city, you’ll be spoiled with options for great beer cellars, many of which can be found around the Grand-Place.

One Brussels bar, pictured here, combines a fabulous Art Nouveau interior with its own eponymous beer: A la Mort Subite (sudden death). It’s worth seeking out and has been famous since the days when Belgian singer-songwriter, actor, and director Jacques Brel made it his local hangout. 

For more examples of Art Deco style in Brussels, stop by the legendary L’Archiduc , a fabulous Brussels bar located in the heart of the Anneessens district, for a relaxing drink you can sip to the sounds of jazz piano. Originally opened in 1937, L'Archiduc is considered to be one of the main cultural hubs of the city and as such, hosts a variety of musical events all year long. Just a few blocks from the Grand Casino Brussels, L'Archiduc is a great place to grab a cocktail, view local art, and enjoy some live music in a relaxed setting. 

Watch the World Go By in the Grand-Place

Make time to stop by the Grand-Place, one of Europe’s most beautiful squares. The heart of Brussels began as a thriving market, soon spreading out into the surrounding maze of streets: Rue au Beurre (butter street), Rue des Bouchers (butchers street), Rue du Marché aux Poulets (chicken market), Rue du Marché Aux Herbes (herb market), and Rue du Marché aux Fromages (cheese market).

In the Grand-Place itself, rich merchants built glorious guild houses as headquarters for different trades, and it’s these gilded, ornate buildings along with an astonishing town hall that give the grand square its wow factor. Many of the guild houses now sport pretty ground floor cafés that spill onto the terrace, making the Grand-Place the perfect place for a leisurely coffee or a Belgian beer as you watch the world pass you by.

Note that at Grand-Place establishments, you’ll be paying tourist rates in exchange for excellent entertainment. Try La Brouette , which has a roaring fire inside during the winter, plenty of outdoor seating during the summer, and a balcony open throughout the year for a bird’s eye view over the scene below. 

Walk the Comic Book Route and Visit the Comics Art Museum

TripSavvy / Gautier Houba 

Comic strip art is alive and well all across Brussels. No matter where you go, you'll come across huge murals painted on the sides of buildings. Tintin, Captain Haddock, and Snowy escape from a hotel in "The Calculus Affair" on Rue de l’Etuve just off the Grand-Place, while the mighty and impossibly good-looking Scorpion looks down on you with his sword drawn in Rue du Treurenberg . Check the Brussels tourism board website for a list of famous street art as well as maps and routes so you can do a self-guided walking tour of the famous Comic Book Route .

Once you're done admiring the street art, head to the Comics Art Museum ( Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinée ), where you can see a large model of the rocket from Tintin’s "Destination Moon" adventure. While Tintin is definitely the main focus, you'll also see other characters from the famous Belgian comic strip including Tintin's companions, Snowy and Captain Haddock, as well as Lucky Luke and the Smurfs, among others. The Comics Art Museum also features permanent exhibitions explaining how the comic strip was developed by Tintin's creator Hergé, as well as a whole section on Peyo complete with a realistic 3D Smurf village.

Temporary exhibitions cover everything about the Ninth Art, housed in a beautiful Art Nouveau industrial building, originally designed by Belgian architect Victor Horta in 1906. While you're there, grab a bite at the Horta Brasserie and some unique comic-themed souvenirs from the gift shop.

Marvel at the City's Art Nouveau Heritage

Brussels is known for its beautiful Art Nouveau style buildings, largely constructed at the turn of the 19th century. Purchase a brochure about them from the Brussels Tourism Office to learn more about the unique architecture of the city center and its surrounding districts. If time allows, opt for a guided walking tour with ARAU , which is given in English and leads guests through the streets, with guides pointing out houses featuring those famous swirling, sinuous balconies, elaborate doorways and, high up under the eaves, panels of mosaics that catch the sunlight.

Stop by the Victor Horta Museum to see the former home of the architect who designed so many of the Art Nouveau buildings found in Brussels. Everything, from the door knockers to the bathroom furniture, has been beautifully maintained, making for a truly remarkable look into the life of the famed architect who once called it home.

Enter the Surreal World of René Magritte

Charly Herscovici, Brussels

Known for his paintings and other works, Surrealist artist René Magritte lived a relatively normal life in the Belgian countryside. If you want to visit the house where he spent his adulthood, catch the 74 tram out to the suburb of Jette.

After you tour his home, spend some time in his distinctly weird world at the Musée René Magritte on the Mont des Arts in central Brussels. It’s a comprehensive trot, with four floors full of everything from his earliest advertisements to the peculiar realm of bowler hats, pipes, odd figures, and dream-like clouds that fill his paintings.

Explore Trendy Sainte-Catherine

The Sainte-Catherine district, located across from the old Bourse (stock exchange), is a trendy and modern shopping and dining destination in itself, home to some of the city's best new restaurants. If you're interested in sightseeing, don’t miss the delightful Notre-Dame-aux-Riches-Claires , a Flemish baroque church that is well worth venturing into if it’s open.

To the west, Rue Antoine Dansaert is full of fashion-forward shops with a reputation for cutting-edge design. Step into Annemie Verbeke  for asymmetrical, often hand-worked women’s clothing or try Martin Margiela for some of the most fashionable styles in town.

You also won’t want to miss the Marché aux Poissons (the old fish market), once the main harbor of Brussels where ships from around the world unloaded everything from salted herrings and timber to grain coal and silk. Today, you'll find plenty of notable fish restaurants along the waterfront, like Restaurant François , which has served lobster, crab, and other seafood since 1922. 

Enjoy Nature Just Outside the City Center

Although the sprawling cityscape may make you think the city is entirely industrial, Brussels is actually one of the greenest cities in Europe. It's also located on the northern edge of the Forêt de Soignes (the Sonian Forest), so you don't have to travel too far to be immersed in nature. Head to the landscaped gardens of Bois de la Cambre, about a 10-minute drive from the city center, for a nice break from all the hustle and bustle.

For an easy day trip, take the 71 or 81 bus to Flagey. From there, it’s a short walk south to the Abbaye de la Cambre , a monastery with beautiful gardens. Along the way, you'll walk on streets lined with Art Nouveau buildings past the Etangs d’Ixelles ponds and their fountains. The Cistercian abbey was founded in 1201; today you can see the 18th-century yellow stone buildings that house the Belgian National Geographic Institute and an art school. Wander into the church, stroll past the ponds, and sit on a bench to take in the birdsong and the peace of this well-landscaped park.

Marvel at The Atomium

Originally constructed for the 1958 World's Fair, The Atomium is a landmark building in Brussels located on the Heysel Plateau that now serves as a museum. The sculpture atop this building is actually the molecular composition of an iron crystal, magnified to 165 billion times its size.

Take in 360 views of Brussels from The Atomium or go on a surrealistic walk through its tubes and spheres. Afterward, wander through the permanent exhibit to learn more about the history of the building and pick up a souvenir from the gift shop.

See a Whole Continent at Mini-Europe

Wikimedia Commons 

Mini-Europe is a miniature park, located in Bruparck at the foot of The Atomium, that showcases scale models of European cities and monuments. The entire park takes under two hours to explore and features some of the most beautiful towns in Europe.

Though closed each year from mid-January to late-March, Mini-Europe is open to the public daily, and tickets are required to see the monuments. Special events like the Spirit of Europe festival are held here throughout the year as well.

Shop at Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert and Jeu de Balle Flea Market

The first indoor shopping arcade in Brussels, Les Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert is a magnificent building lined with high-end shops, theaters, cafes, and a variety of unique boutiques.

Designed and built by Jean-Pierre Cluysenaer between 1846 and 1847, the shopping center stretches out over three separate sections called the King's Gallery, the Queen's Gallery, and the Gallery of the Princes. Whether you're looking to shop or you just want to admire this architectural marvel, it's a great destination, one that's now included in UNESCO's "Tentative List" in the cultural heritage category for World Heritage sites.

Nearby, shopping enthusiasts have been haggling over every object you could imagine at the Jeu de Balle Flea Market since 1919. It’s open daily, with traders selling furniture, jewelry, ornate lampshades, glasses of every size, color, and shape, and other odds and ends.

The market is in the Marolles in what is traditionally the working-class district of Brussels, where you can still hear the distinct Flemish-based dialect spoken today. From a thriving area for artisans in the 17th century to a slum in the 1870s, the Marolles started to become fashionable in the 1980s. Walk along the two roads that lead to the square (Rue Blaes and Rue Haute ) for an eclectic mix of antiques shops, bars, and restaurants.

Admire Modern Art at MIMA

The Millennium Iconoclast Museum of Art (MIMA) is one of the coolest museums in the country, featuring a range of art forms including graffiti, digital, and mixed-media.

Located inside the former Bellevue Breweries building overlooking the canal, MIMA is open Wednesday through Sunday throughout the year. A variety of permanent and rotating exhibits decorate the halls of MIMA, while you can pick up art prints, books, and supplies as well as tasty treats and drinks at the onsite gift shop and cafe.  

Play a Tune at the Musical Instrument Museum

Besides chocolate and comics, Brussels is a city that truly appreciates and celebrates music in its many forms. If you want to explore and discover its musical history (and that of the rest of the world), visit the Musical Instrument Museum for a look at more than 6,000 unique music makers.

Located near the Palais du Coudenberg and Mont des Arts in the Royal Quarter of Brussels, the MIM also houses its own concert hall, specialized library, museum shop, and workshop for restoring and conserving historical musical devices.

Discover Art Deco at Villa Empain

Brussels isn't just known for its Art Nouveau architecture; by the 1920s, Art Deco had begun taking over sections of the city as well. One of the best examples of this new design style came in the form of Villa Empain , a beautiful building designed by Swiss architect Michel Polak.

Now open to the public and offering tours by the Boghossian Foundation, Villa Empain is considered to be a masterpiece of the Art Deco era. The Villa is also home to a culture and arts center that hosts a variety of workshops, discussions, and panels about all things modern and classic art.

Indulge in Decadence at the Van Buuren Museum

Another famous site for Art Deco style can be found just a 15-minute drive from Brussels in Uccle. The Van Buuren Museum is the former home of David and Alice Van Buuren, who spent more than 30 years transforming the estate into a living museum highlighting the works of famous artists, including Van Gogh.

The grounds are also home to the Garden of Hearts, a beautifully curated sculpture and flower garden that surrounds the estate. The Van Buuren Museum is open daily except Tuesdays, with guided and self-guided tours of the mansion, garden, and bookstore available year-round.

Visit Notre Dame Du Sablon

TripSavvy / Alisha McDarris

Eglise Notre Dame du Sablon (Church of Our Lady of Victories at the Sablon) is a Late Gothic church that's one of the most beautiful buildings in the city. Once used as a chapel by the Archer's Guild, this 14th-century structure located just outside the city center offers tours throughout the year and still serves as a place of worship.

Find the Peeing Statues

Of the many odd art installations in Brussels, the statues of a small boy, a small girl, and a small dog relieving themselves on the city streets are probably the strangest. Known as Manneken Pis , Jeanneke Pis , and Zinneke Pis , these statues can be found throughout Brussels; local residents often dress up Manneken and Jeanneke in colorful outfits.

While Manneken was installed in 1619, his sister Jeanneke and their dog Zinneke weren't installed until the late 1980s and 1990s. You'll find Manneken on the corner of Rue de l’Étuve/Stoofstraat and Rue du Chêne/Eikstraat ; Zinneke at the corner of Rue des Chartreux and Rue du Vieux Marché aux grains ; and Jeanneke across the street from the Délirium Café on Impasse de la Fidélité near the Rue des Bouchers .

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Wherever else you go in Belgium, allow at least a little time for BRUSSELS , which is undoubtedly one of Europe’s premier cities. Certainly, don’t let its unjustified reputation as a dull, faceless centre of EU bureaucracy deter you: in postwar years, the city has become a thriving, cosmopolitan metropolis, with top-flight museums and architecture (including a well-preserved late seventeenth-century centre), a superb restaurant scene and an energetic nightlife. Moreover, most of the key attractions are crowded into a centre that is small enough to be absorbed over a few long days, its boundaries largely defined by a ring of boulevards – the “petit ring”, or less colloquially, the “petite ceinture”.

Around Brussels: Waterloo

Bilingual brussels, the brussels card, east of the centre: the eu quarter and le cinquantenaire, eating and drinking, the grand-place, guided tours, the lower town, nightlife and entertainment, north of the centre: jette, laeken and heysel, south of the centre: st-gilles, avenue louise and ixelles, train station names, the upper town.

First-time visitors to Brussels are often surprised by the raw vitality of the city centre. It isn’t neat and tidy, and many of the old tenement houses are shabby and ill-used, but there’s a buzz about the place that’s hard to resist. The city centre is divided into two main areas. The larger westerly portion comprises the Lower Town , fanning out from the marvellous Grand-Place , with its exquisite guildhouses and town hall, while up above, on a ridge to the east, lies the much smaller Upper Town , home to the finest art collection in the country in the Musées Royaux des Beaux Arts.

Since the eleventh century, the ruling elite has lived in the Upper Town, keeping a beady eye on the workers and shopkeepers down below – a state of affairs that still – in part – remains. In recent times, this fundamental class division, so obvious in the layout of the centre, has been further complicated by discord between Belgium’s two main linguistic groups, the Walloons (the French-speakers) and the Flemings (the Dutch- or Flemish-speakers), and to add to the communal stew, these two groups now share their city with many others, including EU civil servants and immigrants from North and Central Africa, Turkey and the Mediterranean. Each of these communities tends to live a very separate, distinct existence, and Brussels’ compact nature heightens the contrasts: in five minutes you can walk from a chichi shopping mall into an African bazaar, or from a depressed slum quarter to a resplendent square of antique shops and exclusive cafés. This is something that increases the city’s allure, not least by way of the sheer variety of affordable cafés and restaurants – Brussels is a wonderful place to eat, its gastronomic reputation rivalling that of Paris. It’s also a great place to drink, with bars ranging from designer chic to rough and ready with everything in between.

The city’s specialist shops are another pleasure. Everyone knows about Belgian chocolates, but here in the capital there are also huge open-air markets, contemporary art galleries and establishments devoted to anything from comic books to costume jewellery and clubland fashion. Furthermore, Belgium is such a small country, and the rail network so fast and efficient, that Brussels also makes the perfect base for a wide range of day-trips. An obvious target is the battlefield of Waterloo , one of the region’s most visited attractions.

Brief history

Brussels takes its name from Broekzele, or “village of the marsh”, the community which grew up beside the wide and shallow River Senne in the sixth century, allegedly around a chapel built here by St Géry, a French bishop turned missionary. A tiny and insignificant part of Charlemagne’s empire at the end of the eighth century, it was subsequently inherited by the dukes of Lower Lorraine (or Lotharingia – roughly Wallonia and northeast France), who constructed a fortress here in 979. Protected, the village benefited from its position on the trade route between Cologne and the burgeoning towns of Bruges and Ghent to become a significant trading centre in its own right. The surrounding marshes were drained to allow for further expansion, and in 1229 the city was granted its first charter by the dukes of Brabant , the new feudal overlords who controlled things here, on and off, for around two hundred years. In the early fifteenth century, marriage merged the interests of the Duchy of Brabant with that of Burgundy, whose territories passed to the Habsburgs in 1482 when Mary, the last of the Burgundian line, died; she was succeeded by her husband, Maximilian I, who was anointed Holy Roman Emperor in 1494.

The first Habsburg rulers had close ties with Brussels, and the Emperor Charles V (1519–55) ran his vast kingdom from the city for over a decade, making it wealthy and politically important in equal measure. By contrast, his successor Philip II (1527–98) lived in Spain and ruled through a governor (for the whole of the Low Countries) resident in Brussels. It could have been a perfectly reasonable arrangement, but Philip’s fanatical Catholicism soon unpicked the equilibrium. Horrified by the Protestant leanings of many of his Low Country subjects, the king imposed a series of anti-Protestant edicts, and when these provoked extensive rioting , he dispatched an army of ten thousand men – led by a hardline reactionary, the Duke of Albe – to crush his opponents in Brussels absolutely. Albe quickly restored order and then, with the help of the Inquisition, set about the rioters with gusto, his Commission of Civil Unrest soon nicknamed the “ Council of Blood ” after its habit of executing those it examined. Goaded into rebellion by Albe’s brutality, Brussels, along with much of the Low Countries, exploded in revolt, and in 1577, the one-time protégé of the Habsburgs, William the Silent , made a triumphant entry into the city and installed a Calvinist government. Protestant control lasted for just eight years, before Philip’s armies recaptured Brussels – and the king wasn’t a man to forgive and forget. Seeing which way the religious wind was blowing, hundreds of Protestants left the city and the economy slumped, though complete catastrophe was averted by the conspicuous consumption of the (Brussels-based) Habsburg elite, whose high spending kept hundreds of workers in employment. Brussels also benefited from the digging of the Willebroek Canal, which linked it to the sea for the first time in its history in 1561.

By the 1580s, the Habsburgs had lost control of the northern part of the Low Countries (now the Netherlands) and Brussels was confirmed as the capital of the remainder, the Spanish Netherlands (broadly modern Belgium). Brussels prospered more than the rest of the country, but it was always prey to the dynastic squabbling between France and Spain: in 1695, for example, Louis XIV bombarded Brussels for 36 hours merely to teach his rivals a lesson, though the guilds , those associations of skilled merchants and workers who were crucial to the economy of Brussels, rebuilt their devastated city in double time, and it’s this version of the Grand-Place that survives today.

In 1700 Charles II, the last of the Spanish Habsburgs, died without issue. The ensuing War of the Spanish Succession dragged on for over a decade, but eventually the Spanish Netherlands were passed to the Austrian Habsburgs, who ruled – as had their predecessors – through a governor based in Brussels. It was during this period as capital of the Austrian Netherlands (1713–94) that most of the monumental buildings of the Upper Town were constructed and its Neoclassical avenues and boulevards laid out – grand extravagance in the context of an increasingly industrialized city crammed with a desperately poor working class.

The French Revolutionary army brushed the Austrians aside at the Battle of Fleurus in 1794, and the Austrian Netherlands promptly became a département of France. This lasted until the defeat of Napoleon when, under the terms of the Congress of Vienna which ended hostilities, the great powers decided to absorb the country into the new Kingdom of the Netherlands , ruled by the Dutch King William I. Brussels took turns with The Hague as the capital, but the experiment was short-lived, and in 1830 a Brussels-led rebellion removed the Dutch and led to the creation of an independent Belgium with Brussels as capital.

The nineteenth century was a period of modernization and expansion, during which the city achieved all the attributes of a modern European capital under the guidance of Burgomaster Anspach and King Léopold II . New boulevards were built; the free university was founded; the Senne – which by then had become an open sewer – was covered over in the city centre; many slum areas were cleared; and a series of grand buildings were erected. The whole enterprise culminated in the golden jubilee exhibition celebrating the founding of the Belgium state in the newly inaugurated Parc du Cinquantenaire.

Following the German occupation of Belgium in World War II, the modernization of Brussels has proceeded inexorably, with many major development projects – not least the new métro system – refashioning the city and reflecting its elevated status as the headquarters of both NATO and the EU.

Top image © Sira Anamwong/Shutterstock

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With over seventy hotels dotted within its central ring of boulevards, Brussels has no shortage of convenient places to stay, but even so finding hotel accommodation can still prove difficult, particularly in the spring and autumn when the capital enjoys what amounts to its high seasons – July and August are much slacker as the business trade dips when the EU (pretty much) closes down for its summer recess. The same cautions apply to the city’s B&Bs , though these are thin on the ground. If you do opt for a B&B, don’t expect UK-style hospitality – in effect you get a self-contained room in a private house – but do expect to be on the peripheries of town, a good way from the action. The city has half a dozen hostels , of which we have listed the best options.

At peak times, it’s prudent to reserve a bed at least for your first night, but if you do arrive with nowhere to stay, the city’s two main tourist offices operate a free same-night hotel booking service . Hotel prices vary hugely. Many have both deluxe and more standard rooms, with charges adjusted accordingly, and regular special and weekend discounts bring prices down by about fifteen percent, with some places occasionally halving their rates.

Brussels lies at the centre of Brabant , one of Belgium’s nine provinces. The Flemings claim the lion’s share of the province with their Vlaams Brabant (Flemish Brabant) actually encircling the capital – a noticeably narrow corridor of Flemish-speaking communities runs round the southern edge of Brussels. WATERLOO is easily the most popular attraction in Brabant Wallon (French-speaking Brabant) and is best seen on a day-trip from the capital. A run-of-the-mill suburb about 18km south of the centre of Brussels, the town has a resonance far beyond its size. On June 18, 1815, at this small crossroads town on what was once the main route to Brussels from France, Wellington masterminded the battle that put an end to the imperial ambitions of Napoleon. The battle turned out to have far more significance than even its generals realized, for not only was this the last throw of the dice for the formidable army born of the French Revolution, but it also marked the end of France’s prolonged attempts to dominate Europe militarily.

Nevertheless, the historic importance of Waterloo has not saved the battlefield from interference – a motorway cuts right across it – and if you do visit you’ll need a lively imagination to picture what happened and where – unless, that is, you’re around to see the large-scale re-enactment which takes place every five years in June; the next one is scheduled for 2015. Scattered round the battlefield are several monuments and memorials, the most satisfying of which is the Butte de Lion , a huge earth mound that’s part viewpoint and part commemoration. The battlefield is 3km south of the centre of Waterloo, where the Musée Wellington is easily the pick of several Waterloo museums.

The battlefield – Le Hameau de Lion

Some 4km south of town, the Waterloo battlefield is a landscape of rolling farmland, interrupted by a couple of main roads and more pleasingly punctuated by the odd copse and farmstead. The ridge where Wellington once marshalled his army now holds a motley assortment of attractions collectively known as Le Hameau du Lion (Lion’s Hamlet). This comprises four separate sites all within a few metres of each other, with the added offering of a 45-minute battlefield tour in a four-wheel-drive. Of the four sites, the worst are the Centre du Visiteur , which features a dire audiovisual display on the battle, and the Musée de Cires (same hours), a dusty wax museum. The best is the 100m-high Butte de Lion (same hours), built by local women with soil from the battlefield. The Butte marks the spot where Holland’s Prince William of Orange – one of Wellington’s commanders and later King William II of the Netherlands – was wounded. It was only a nick, so goodness knows how high it would have been if William had been seriously injured, but even so the mound is a commanding monument, surmounted by a regal 28-tonne lion atop a stout column. From the viewing platform, there’s a panoramic view over the battlefield, and a plan identifies which army was where. Also enjoyable is the Panorama de la Bataille (same hours), where a circular, naturalistic painting of the battle, on a canvas no less than 110m in circumference, is displayed in a purpose-built, rotunda-like gallery – to a thundering soundtrack of bugles, snorting horses and cannon fire. Panorama painting is extremely difficult – controlling perspective is always a real problem – but it was very much in vogue when the Parisian artist Louis Dumoulin began this effort in 1912. Precious few panoramas have survived and this one is a bit past its best, but it does at least give a sense of the battle. You can also venture out onto the battlefield under your own steam by following the old track that cuts south across the fields from beside the Panorama.

The Battle of Waterloo

Napoleon escaped from imprisonment on the Italian island of Elba on February 26, 1815. He landed in Cannes three days later and moved swiftly north, entering Paris on March 20 just as his unpopular replacement – the slothful King Louis XVIII – high-tailed it to Ghent. Thousands of Frenchmen rallied to Napoleon’s colours and, with little delay, Napoleon marched northeast to fight the two armies that threatened his future. Both were in Belgium. One, an assortment of British, Dutch and German soldiers, was commanded by the Duke of Wellington , the other was a Prussian army led by Marshal Blücher . At the start of the campaign, Napoleon’s army was about 130,000 strong, larger than each of the opposing armies but not big enough to fight them both at the same time. Napoleon’s strategy was, therefore, quite straightforward: he had to stop Wellington and Blücher from joining together – and to this end he crossed the Belgian frontier near Charleroi to launch a quick attack. On June 16, the French hit the Prussians hard, forcing them to retreat and giving Napoleon the opportunity he was looking for. Napoleon detached a force of 30,000 soldiers to harry the retreating Prussians, while he concentrated his main army against Wellington, hoping to deliver a knockout blow. Meanwhile, Wellington had assembled his troops at Waterloo , on the main road to Brussels.

At dawn on Sunday June 18 , the two armies faced each other. Wellington had some 68,000 men, about one third of whom were British, and Napoleon around five thousand more. The armies were deployed just 1500m apart with Wellington on the ridge north of – and uphill from – the enemy. It had rained heavily during the night, so Napoleon delayed his first attack to give the ground a chance to dry. At 11.30am , the battle began when the French assaulted the fortified farm of Hougoumont, which was crucial for the defence of Wellington’s right. The assault failed and at approximately 1pm there was more bad news for Napoleon when he heard that the Prussians had eluded their pursuers and were closing fast. To gain time he sent 14,000 troops off to impede their progress and at 2pm he tried to regain the initiative by launching a large-scale infantry attack against Wellington’s left. This second French attack also proved inconclusive and so at 4pm Napoleon’s cavalry charged Wellington’s centre, where the British infantry formed into squares and just managed to keep the French at bay – a desperate engagement that cost hundreds of lives. By 5.30pm , the Prussians had begun to reach the battlefield in numbers to the right of the French lines and, at 7.30pm , with the odds getting longer and longer, Napoleon made a final bid to break Wellington’s centre, sending in his Imperial Guard. These were the best soldiers Napoleon had, but slowed down by the mud churned up by their own cavalry, the veterans proved easy targets for the British infantry, and they were beaten back with great loss of life. At 8.15pm , Wellington, who knew victory was within his grasp, rode down the ranks to encourage his soldiers before ordering the large-scale counterattack that proved decisive.

The French were vanquished and Napoleon subsequently abdicated , ending his days in exile on St Helena, where he died in 1821. Popular memory, however, refused to vilify Napoleon as the aggressor – and not just in France, but right across Europe, where the Emperor’s bust was a common feature of the nineteenth-century drawing room. In part, this was to do with Napoleon’s obvious all-round brilliance, but more crucially, he soon became a symbol of opportunity: in him the emergent middle classes of western Europe saw a common man becoming greater than the crowned heads of Europe, an almost unique event at the time.

The Musée Wellington

The Musée Wellington , chaussée de Bruxelles 147 ( w www.museewellington.com ), occupies the old inn where Wellington slept the nights before and after the battle. It’s an enjoyable affair, whose displays detail the build-up to – and the course of – the battle via plans and models, alongside an engaging hotchpotch of personal effects. Room 4 holds the bed where Alexander Gordon, Wellington’s principal aide-de-camp, was brought to die, and here also is the artificial leg of Lord Uxbridge, another British commander: “I say, I’ve lost my leg,” Uxbridge is reported to have said during the battle, to which Wellington replied, “By God, sir, so you have!” After the battle, Uxbridge’s leg was buried here in Waterloo, but it was returned to London when he died to join the rest of his body; as a consolation, his artificial leg was donated to the museum. Such insouciance was not uncommon among the British ruling class and neither were the bodies of the dead soldiers considered sacrosanct: tooth dealers roamed the battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars pulling out teeth, which were then stuck on two pieces of board with a spring at the back – primitive dentures known in England as “Waterloos”.

In Wellington’s bedroom, Room 6 , there are copies of the messages Wellington sent to his commanders during the course of the battle, curiously formal epistles laced with phrases like “Could you be so kind as to …”. Finally, an extension at the back of the museum reprises what has gone before, albeit on a slightly larger scale, with more models, plans and military paraphernalia plus a lucid outline of the immediate historical background.

As a cumbersome compromise between Belgium’s French- and Flemish-speaking communities, Brussels is the country’s only officially bilingual region . This means that every instance of the written word, from road signs and street names to the Yellow Pages , has by law to appear in both languages. Visitors soon adjust – though on arrival the names of the main train stations can be confusing – but for simplicity we’ve used the French version of street names, sights etc.

The good-value Brussels Card ( w www.brusselscard.be ) provides free access to most of the city’s key museums, unlimited travel on the STIB public transport network, and discounts of up to 25 percent at specified restaurants and bars. There are three versions – 24hr (€24), 48hr (€34), and 72hr (€40) – and each is valid from the first time it is used, rather than the day of issue. The card is on sale online via the website and at both main tourist offices; there are no concessionary rates for seniors or children. It’s issued with a booklet detailing all the concessions and discounts.

Brussels by no means ends at the petit ring . King Léopold II pushed the city limits out beyond the course of the old walls, grabbing land from the surrounding communes to create the irregular boundaries that survive today. To the east , he sequestered a rough rectangle of land across which he ploughed two wide boulevards to link the city centre with Le Cinquantenaire , a self-glorifying and markedly grandiose monument erected to celebrate the golden jubilee of Belgian independence, and one that now houses three sprawling museums, two specialists and the more general Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire . There’s no disputing the grandness of Léopold’s design, but in recent decades it has been overlaid with the uncompromising office blocks of the EU. These high-rises coalesce hereabouts to form the loosely defined EU quarter , not a particularly enjoyable area to explore, though the strikingly flashy European Parliament building is of passing interest, especially as it is just footsteps from the fascinating – and fascinatingly eccentric – paintings of the Musée Antoine Wiertz . If, however, you’ve an insatiable appetite for the monuments of Léopold, then you should venture further east to Tervuren , where the king built the massive Musée Royal de L’Afrique Centrale on the edge of the woods of the Forêt de Soignes.

The EU in Brussels

The three main institutions of the European Union operate mainly, though not exclusively, from Brussels. The European Parliament carries out its committee work and the majority of its business in Brussels, heading off for Strasbourg for around twelve, three-day plenary sessions per year. It’s the only EU institution to meet and debate in public, and has been directly elected since 1979. There are currently 736 MEPs, and they sit in political blocks rather than national delegations; members are very restricted on speaking time, and debates tend to be well-mannered consensual affairs, controlled by the President , who is elected for a five-year period by Parliament itself – although this mandate is often split in two and shared by the two biggest political groups. The Conference of Presidents – the President of the Parliament and Leaders of all the political groups – meet to plan future parliamentary business. Supporting and advising this political edifice is a complex network of committees from agriculture to human rights.

The European Council consists of the heads of government of each of the member states and the President of the European Commission; they meet twice every six months in the much-publicized “European Summits”. However, in between these meetings, ministers responsible for different issues meet in the Council of the European Union , the main decision-making structure alongside the European Parliament. There are complex rules regarding decision-making: some subjects require only a simple majority, others need unanimous support, some can be decided by the Council alone, others need the agreement of Parliament. This political structure is underpinned by scores of Brussels-based committees and working parties, made up of both civil servants and political appointees.

The European Commission acts as the EU’s executive arm and board of control, managing funds and monitoring all manner of agreements. The 27 Commissioners are political appointees, nominated by their home countries, but their tenure has to be agreed by the European Parliament and they remain accountable to the MEPs. The president of the Commission is elected by the European Parliament for a five-year period of office. Over twenty thousand civil servants work for the Commission, whose headquarters are in Brussels, mainly in the Berlaymont and adjacent Charlemagne building on rue de la Loi as well as other buildings in the Schuman area.

Brussels can hold its own with any international city when it comes to eating out , and whatever your taste, price range or preferred type of cuisine there is almost always something that will suit. Look out particularly for traditional Bruxellois dishes, canny amalgamations of Walloon and Flemish ingredients and cooking styles, whether rabbit cooked in beer, steamed pigs’ feet or waterzooi (for more on Belgian specialities). As for where to eat, the distinction between the city’s cafés , café-bars and restaurants is fairly elastic, and there are great places over the city, with particular concentrations on place Ste-Catherine and rue du Flandre in the Lower Town and place Boniface and place du Châtelain in Ixelles.

Drinking in Brussels, as in the rest of the country, is a joy. The city boasts an enormous variety of café-bars and bars : sumptuous Art Nouveau establishments, traditional bars with ceilings stained brown by a century’s smoke, speciality beer bars with literally hundreds of different varieties of ale and, of course, more modern hangouts. Many of the more distinctive bars are handily located within a few minutes’ walk of the Grand-Place and also in Ixelles, but really you’ll be spoiled for choice.

There’s no smoking in any establishment that sells food, along with bars and clubs.

Restaurants

Restaurant opening times are pretty standard – a couple of hours at lunchtime, usually noon to 2pm or 2.30pm, and again in the evening from 7pm to around 10pm; precise hours are given with the reviews below. At all but the cheapest restaurants, advance reservations are recommended, especially on Friday and Saturday evenings.

Bars and cafés

Belgians make little – or no – distinction between their bars and cafés : both serve alcohol, many stay open late (until 2am or even 3am) and most sell food as well. What you won’t find (thank goodness) are lots of the coffee house chains which beleaguer so many big cities.

The obvious place to begin any tour of Brussels is the Grand-Place , one of Europe’s most beautiful squares, which sits among a labyrinth of narrow, cobbled alleys and lanes at the heart of the Lower Town. Here, the Gothic extravagance of the Hôtel de Ville (town hall) presides over the gilded facades of a full set of late seventeenth-century guildhouses , whose columns, scrolled gables and dainty sculptures encapsulate Baroque ideals of balance and harmony. Inevitably, such an outstanding attraction draws tourists and expats in their droves, but there’s no better place to get a taste of Brussels’ past and Eurocapital present.

Originally marshland, the Grand-Place was drained in the twelfth century, and by 1350 covered markets for bread, meat and cloth had been erected, born of an economic boom that was underpinned by a flourishing cloth industry. Later, the Grand-Place’s role as the commercial hub of the emergent city was cemented when the city’s guilds built their headquarters on the square and, in the fifteenth century, it also assumed a civic and political function with the construction of the Hôtel de Ville. The ruling dukes visited the square to meet the people or show off in tournaments, and it was here that official decrees and pronouncements were proclaimed.

During the religious wars of the sixteenth century, the Grand-Place became as much a place of public execution as trade, but thereafter resumed its former role as a marketplace. Of the square’s medieval buildings, however, only parts of the Hôtel de Ville and one or two guildhouses have survived, the consequence of an early example of the precepts of total war, a 36-hour French artillery bombardment which pretty much razed Brussels to the ground in 1695; the commander of the French artillery gloated, “I have never yet seen such a great fire nor so much desolation”. After the French withdrew, the city’s guildsmen dusted themselves down and speedily had their headquarters rebuilt, adopting the distinctive and flamboyant Baroque style that characterizes the square today.

The health of Charles II

Philip IV of Spain (1605–65) had no fewer than fourteen children, but only one of his sons – Charles II (1661–1700) – reached his twenties. With women banned from the succession, the hapless, sickly Charles became king aged just four and, much to everyone’s surprise, survived to adulthood. After his first marriage in 1679, there were great hopes that he would sire an heir , but none arrived, allegedly because Charles suffered from premature ejaculation. A second marriage, twenty years later, was equally fruitless and, as it became increasingly clear that Charles was unable to procreate, Europe focused on what was to happen when Charles died and the Spanish royal line died out. Every ambassador to the Spanish court wrote long missives home about the health of Charles, none more so than the English representative, Stanhope , who painted an especially gloomy picture: “He (Charles) has a ravenous stomach and swallows all he eats whole, for his nether jaw stands out so much that his two rows of teeth cannot meet…His weak stomach not being able to digest the food, he voids it in the same (whole) manner.”

In the autumn of 1700, it was clear that Charles was dying and his doctors went to work in earnest, replacing his pillows with freshly killed pigeons and covering his chest with animal entrails. Not surprisingly, this didn’t work and Charles died on November 1, an event which triggered the War of the Spanish Succession .

The Hôtel de Ville

From the south side of the Grand-Place, the scrubbed and polished Hôtel de Ville (town hall) dominates proceedings, its 96m spire soaring high above two long series of robust windows, whose straight lines are mitigated by fancy tracery and an arcaded gallery. The edifice dates from the beginning of the fifteenth century, when the town council decided to build itself a mansion that adequately reflected its wealth and power. The first part to be completed was the east wing – the original entrance is marked by the twin lions of the Lion Staircase, though the animals were only added in 1770. Work started on the west wing in 1444 and continued until 1480. Despite the gap, the wings are of very similar style, and you have to look hard to notice that the later one is slightly shorter than its neighbour, allegedly at the insistence of Charles the Bold who – for some unknown reason – refused to have the adjacent rue de la Tête d’Or narrowed. The niches were left empty and the statues seen today, which represent leading figures from the city’s past, were added as part of a nineteenth-century refurbishment.

By any standard, the tower of the Hôtel de Ville is quite extraordinary, its remarkably slender appearance the work of Jan van Ruysbroeck , the leading spire specialist of the day, who also played a leading role in the building of the cathedral. Ruysbroeck had the lower section built square to support the weight above, choosing a design that blended seamlessly with the elaborately carved facade on either side – or almost: look carefully and you’ll see that the main entrance is slightly out of kilter. Ruysbroeck used the old belfry porch as the base for the new tower, hence the misalignment, a deliberate decision rather than the miscalculation which, according to popular legend, prompted the architect’s suicide. Above the cornice protrudes an octagonal extension where the basic design of narrow windows flanked by pencil-thin columns and pinnacles is repeated up as far as the pyramid-shaped spire , a delicate affair surmounted by a gilded figure of St Michael , protector of Christians in general and of soldiers in particular. The tower is off-limits, and guided tours in English are confined to a string of lavish official rooms used for receptions and town council meetings. Tours begin at the reception desk off the interior quadrangle; be prepared for the guides’ overly reverential script.

Guided tours are big business in Brussels; everything from a quick stroll or bus ride round the city centre to themed visits is on offer, and both Brussels International tourist offices have the details of – and take bookings for – about twenty operators. As a general rule, the more predictable tours can be booked on the day, while the more exotic need to be booked ahead of time, either direct with the company concerned or with the tourist office, who normally require at least two weeks’ advance notice. Among the many more straightforward options, Brussels City Tours , rue de la Colline 8 ( w www.brussels-city-tours.com ), operates the Visit Brussels Line, a hop-on, hop-off bus service which loops round the city, visiting twelve of its principal sights.

More promising is ARAU (Atelier de Recherche et d’Action Urbaines), blvd Adolphe Max 55 ( t 02 219 33 45, w www.arau.org ), a heritage action group which provides tours exploring the city’s architectural history – with particular emphasis on Art Nouveau – from April through to December; prices vary with the length of the tour and the itinerary, but average about €10 per person for walking tours, €15 if there’s some transport involved.

Cramped and populous, the Lower Town fans out from the Grand-Place in all directions, bisected by one major north–south boulevard, variously named Adolphe Max, Anspach and Lemonnier. Setting aside the boulevard – which was ploughed through in the nineteenth century – the layout of the Lower Town remains essentially medieval, a skein of narrow, cobbled lanes and alleys in which almost every street is crimped by tall and angular town houses. There’s nothing neat and tidy about all of this, but that’s what gives it its appeal – dilapidated terraces stand next to prestigious mansions and the whole district is dotted with superb buildings, everything from beautiful Baroque churches through to Art Nouveau department stores.

The Lower Town is at its most beguiling to the northwest of the Grand-Place, where the churches of Ste-Catherine and Ste-Jean-Baptiste au Béguinage stand amid a cobweb of quaint streets and tiny squares. The streets to the north of the Grand-Place are of less immediate appeal, with particularly dreary rue Neuve, a pedestrianized main drag that’s home to the city’s mainstream shops and stores, leading up to the clumping skyscrapers that surround the place Rogier and the Gare du Nord. This is an uninviting part of the city, but relief is at hand in the precise Habsburg symmetries of the place des Martyrs and at the Belgian Comic Strip Centre, the Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinée. To the south of the Grand-Place, almost everyone makes a beeline for the city’s mascot, the Manneken Pis , but much more enjoyable is the museum dedicated to Belgium’s most celebrated chansonnier, Jacques Brel .

Éditions Jacques Brel

From the Manneken Pis, it’s a short stroll to place de la Vieille-Halle aux Blés, where the Éditions Jacques Brel ( www.jacquesbrel.be ) is a small but inventive museum celebrating the life and times of the Belgian singer Jacques Brel (1933–78), who was born and raised in Schaarbeek, a suburb of Brussels, though he lived most of his life in France. A legend in his own musical lifetime, Brel became famous in the 1960s as a gravelly voiced singer of mournful chansons about death, loss, desire and love, all of which he wrote himself. Inside the museum, a sequence of life-size tableaux give the impression that you have just missed Brel – a cigarette still burns in the replica bar – and you can watch films of the man in concert in the small and cosy theatre-cum-cinema. Brel’s performances were famous for their intensity and if you watch a show you can’t fail to be affected, though actually liking the music is another thing altogether.

Jacques Brel playlist

If you like what you hear at the Éditions Jacques Brel, you might want to check out some songs from the playlist below, which covers the very best of Brel’s work.

Brel’s deliberately repetitive, climactic tale of sailors in seedy ports is a fantastically evocative song, and was one of his most intense live numbers.

Les Bonbons

This is Brel at his wittiest and most unforgiving, poking fun at 1960s hippies.

Le chanson de Jackie

Brel in autobiographical mode, looking back in fantastically rumbustious fashion on his career and forward into his future.

One of Brel’s greatest love songs, brilliantly covered by Scott Walker.

Le Moribond

The tormented and yet curiously upbeat lament of a dying man that gave rise to the Terry Jacks hit of 1974.

Ne me quitte pas

Brel’s most anguished love song, and perhaps one of the most affecting ever written, memorably covered by Nina Simone.

Quand on n’a que l’amour

One of Brel’s earliest songs, When we have only Love was his first hit single.

The Impossible Dream has been covered by just about everyone and is quite rightly one of Brel’s best-known songs, but his version stands out.

Je suis un soir d’été

This late and very atmospheric study of summer ennui in small-town Belgium is one of Brel’s most beautiful songs.

Brel is typically satirical in this biting rant against war, militarism and middle-class bourgeois values.

Tintin was the creation of Brussels-born Georges Remi , aka Hergé (1907–83). Remi’s first efforts (pre-Tintin) were sponsored by a right-wing Catholic journal, Le XXième Siècle , and in 1929 when this same paper produced a kids’ supplement – Le Petit Vingtième – Remi was given his first major break. He was asked to produce a two-page comic strip and the result was Tintin in the Land of the Soviets , a didactic tale about the evils of Bolshevism. Tintin’s Soviet adventure lasted until May 1930, and to round it all off the director of Le XXième Siècle decided to stage a PR-stunt reception to celebrate Tintin’s return from the USSR. Remi – along with a Tintin lookalike – hopped on a train just east of Brussels and when they pulled into the capital they were mobbed by scores of excited children. Remi and Tintin never looked back. Remi decided on the famous quiff straight away, but other features – the mouth and expressive eyebrows – only came later. His popularity was – and remains – quite phenomenal: Tintin has been translated into sixty languages and over twenty million copies of the comic Le Journal de Tintin , Remi’s own independent creation first published in 1946, have been sold – and that’s not mentioning all the Tintin TV cartoon series. Remi’s life and work are also celebrated at the Musée Hergé in Louvain-la-Neuve.

As far as nightlife goes, it’s likely you’ll be happy to while away the evenings in one of the city’s bars or café-bars – there are plenty in which you can drink until sunrise. If that isn’t enough, Brussels also has a clutch of established clubs , though most of the action revolves around club nights with moveable locations. It’s a fast-moving scene, so the best bet is to check out local websites to see what’s on. Brussels is a good place to catch live bands , with a number of especially appealing smaller venues such as Ancienne Belgique and Botanique . Along with Antwerp, the city is also a regular stop on the European tours of major artists, the big venue being Forest Nationale . Jazz is well catered for too, with several bars playing host to local and international acts, as well as the internationally acclaimed Jazz Marathon held every May ( www.brusselsjazzmarathon.be ).

The classical musical scene is excellent. The Orchestre National de Belgique ( www.nob.be ) enjoys an international reputation and the city showcases a number of excellent classical music festivals. Cream of the crop are the Ars Musica festival of contemporary music held in March ( www.arsmusica.be ), and May’s prestigious Concours Musical Reine Elisabeth ( www.concours-reine-elisabeth.be ), a competition for piano, violin and voice. Opera lovers should make a beeline for the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, which is much praised for staging contemporary interpretations of classic operas, as well as offering a more eclectic repertoire of music and dance. Indeed, the city’s dance scene has been impressing visitors ever since Maurice Béjart brought his classical Twentieth Century Ballet here in 1959. Now the main dance venues are the Koninklijke Vlaamse Schouwberg and the Kaaitheatre, but the innovative legacy of Béjart lives on, with his old company (now called Rosas and led by Anne Theresa de Keersmaeker) regularly performing at Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie.

The big players in the Brussels theatre scene are the Francophone Théâtre National and the Flemish Koninklijke Vlaamse Schouwberg, but the city also has an abundance of small theatres providing an eclectic programme from experimental theatre to political pieces and comedy. Most productions are performed in French and Flemish, but several American, Irish and British theatre groups put on high-quality amateur productions too.

The free, trilingual Agenda has the most comprehensive listings of concerts and events. Published every Thursday, it can be picked up in all main métro stations, plus some bars and cafés.

To the north of the city centre lies Jette , a well-heeled suburb that wouldn’t merit a second glance if it weren’t for the former home of René Magritte, now turned into the engaging Musée René Magritte , which pays detailed tribute to the artist, his family and friends. East of here is leafy Laeken , where the Belgian royal family hunker down, and next door again is Heysel , with its trademark Atomium , a hand-me-down from the 1958 World’s Fair.

Brussels has a supreme selection of small, independent shops , a smashing range of open-air markets and a number of charming galeries , covered shopping “streets” dating back to the nineteenth century. The main downtown shopping street is rue Neuve , but this is dominated by chain stores; the Galeries St-Hubert , near the Grand-Place, are much more distinctive, accommodating a smattering of upmarket shops and stores, while the nearby Galerie Agora peddles bargain-basement leather jackets, incense, jewellery and ethnic goods. Behind the Bourse, rue Antoine Dansaert caters for the young and fashionable, housing the stores of upcoming designers as well as big Belgian names like Strelli, and in neighbouring St-Géry , rue des Riches Claires and rue du Marché au Charbon are good for streetwear. More than anything else, however, Brussels is famous for three things: comic strips , beer and chocolate .

Generally speaking, shops and stores are open from 10am to 6pm or 7pm Monday through Saturday. On Fridays, most department stores stay open till 8pm, and some tourist-oriented shops open on Sundays too.

Cobwebbed by tiny squares and narrow streets, home to a plethora of local bars and many of the capital’s finest Art Nouveau houses, the neighbouring areas of St-Gilles and Ixelles, just south of the petit ring, make a great escape from the razzmatazz of the city centre. St-Gilles , the smaller of the two communes , does have patches of inner-city decay, but it gets more beautiful the further east it spreads, its run-down streets soon left behind for attractive avenues interspersed with dignified squares. Ixelles , for its part, is one of the capital’s most interesting and exciting outer areas, with a diverse street-life and café scene. Historically something of a cultural crossroads, Ixelles has long drawn artists, writers and intellectuals – Karl Marx, Auguste Rodin and Alexandre Dumas all lived here – and today it retains an arty, sometimes Bohemian feel. Ixelles is cut into two by avenue Louise , a prosperous corridor that is actually part of the city – a territorial anomaly inherited from Léopold II, who laid it out and named it after his eldest daughter in the 1840s. Some of Brussels’ premier hotels, shops and boutiques flank the northern reaches of the avenue and further along is the enjoyable Musée Constantin Meunier , sited in the sculptor’s old house.

More than anything else, however, it’s the superb range of Art Nouveau buildings clustering the streets of St-Gilles and Ixelles that really grab the attention. Many of the finest examples are concentrated on and around the boundary between the two communes – in between chaussée de Charleroi and avenue Louise – and it’s here you’ll find Horta’s own house and studio, now the glorious Musée Victor Horta , one of the few Art Nouveau buildings in the country fully open to the public. Access to most of the city’s Art Nouveau buildings is restricted, so you can either settle for the view from outside, or enrol on one of ARAU’s specialist Art Nouveau tours.

Musée Victor Horta

The best place to start a visit to St-Gilles is the delightful Musée Victor Horta ( w www.hortamuseum.be ), just off the chaussée de Charleroi at rue Américaine 25 and reachable by tram #92 from place Louise. The museum occupies the two houses Horta designed as his home and studio at the end of the nineteenth century, and was where he lived until 1919. The exterior sets the tone, a striking re-working and re-ordering of what was originally a modest terraced structure, the fluidity of the design incorporating almost casually knotted and twisted ironwork. Yet it is for his interiors that Horta is particularly famous. Inside is a sunny, sensuous dwelling exhibiting all the architect’s favourite flourishes – wrought iron, stained glass, ornate furniture and panelling made from several different types of timber. The main unifying feature is the staircase , a dainty spiralling affair, which runs through the centre of the house illuminated by a large skylight. Decorated with painted motifs and surrounded by mirrors, it remains one of Horta’s most magnificent and ingenious creations, giving access to a sequence of wide, bright rooms. Also of interest is the modest but enjoyable selection of paintings, many of which were given to Horta by friends and colleagues, including works by Félicien Rops and Joseph Heymans.

Horta’s progress

The son of a shoemaker, Victor Horta (1861–1947) was born in Ghent, where he failed in his first career, being unceremoniously expelled from the city’s music conservatory for indiscipline. He promptly moved to Paris to study architecture, returning to Belgium in 1880 to complete his internship in Brussels with Alphonse Balat, architect to King Léopold II. Balat was a traditionalist, partly responsible for the classical facades of the Palais Royal – among many other prestigious projects – and Horta looked elsewhere for inspiration. He found it in the work of William Morris, the leading figure of the English Arts and Crafts movement, whose designs were key to the development of Art Nouveau . Taking its name from the Maison de l’Art Nouveau, a Parisian shop which sold items of modern design, Art Nouveau rejected the imitative architectures which were popular at the time – Neoclassical and neo-Gothic – in favour of an innovatory style characterized by sinuous, flowing lines. In England, Morris and his colleagues had focused on book illustrations and furnishings, but in Belgium Horta extrapolated the new style into architecture, experimenting with new building materials – steel and concrete – as well as traditional stone, glass and wood.

In 1893, Horta completed the curvaceous Hôtel Tassel , Brussels’ first Art Nouveau building (“hôtel” meaning town house). Inevitably, there were howls of protest from the traditionalists, but no matter what his opponents said, Horta never lacked work again. The following years – roughly 1893 to 1905 – were Horta’s most inventive and prolific. He designed over forty buildings, including the Hôtel Solvay , the Hôtel Max Hallet , and his own beautifully decorated house and studio, now the Musée Victor Horta . The delight Horta took in his work is obvious, especially when employed on private houses, and his enthusiasm was all-encompassing – he almost always designed everything from the blueprints to the wallpaper and carpets. He never kept a straight line or sharp angle where he could deploy a curve, and his use of light was revolutionary, often filtering through from above, with skylights and as many windows as possible. Horta felt that the architect was as much an artist as the painter or sculptor, and so he insisted on complete stylistic freedom; curiously, he also believed that originality was born of frustration, so he deliberately created architectural difficulties, pushing himself to find harmonious solutions. It was part of a well-thought-out value system that allied him with the political Left; as he wrote, “My friends and I were reds, without however having thought about Marx or his theories”.

Completed in 1906, the Grand Magasin Waucquez department store was a transitional building signalling the end of Horta’s Art Nouveau period. His later works were more Modernist constructions, whose understated lines were a far cry from the ornateness of his earlier work. In Brussels, the best example of his later work is the Palais des Beaux Arts (BOZAR) of 1928.

When you first arrive, the city’s bilingual signage can be very confusing, especially with regard to the names of the three main train stations : Bruxelles-Nord (in Flemish Brussel-Noord), Bruxelles-Centrale (Brussel-Centraal) and, most bewildering of the lot, Bruxelles-Midi (Brussel-Zuid). To add to the puzzle, each of the three adjoins a métro station – respectively the Gare du Nord (Noordstation), Gare Centrale (Centraal Station) and Gare du Midi (Zuidstation).

From the heights of the Upper Town , the Francophile ruling class long kept a beady eye on the proletarians down below, and it was here they built their palaces and mansions, churches and parks. Political power is no longer concentrated hereabouts, but the wide avenues and grand architecture of this aristocratic quarter – the bulk of which dates from the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – have survived pretty much intact, lending a stately, dignified feel that’s markedly different from the bustle of the Lower Town.

The Lower Town ends and the Upper Town begins at the foot of the sharp slope which runs north to south from one end of the city centre to the other, its course marked – in general terms at least – by a wide boulevard that’s variously named Berlaimont, L’Impératrice and L’Empereur. This slope is home to the city’s cathedral , but otherwise is little more than an obstacle to be climbed by a series of stairways. Among the latter, the most frequently used are the covered walkway running through the Galerie Ravenstein shopping arcade behind the Gare Centrale, and the open-air stairway that climbs up through the stodgy, modern buildings of the so-called Mont des Arts . Léopold II gave the area its name in anticipation of a fine art museum he intended to build, but the project was never completed, and the land was only properly built upon in the 1950s.

Above the rigorous layout of the Mont des Arts lie the rue Royale and rue de la Régence , which together make up the Upper Town’s spine, a suitably smart location for the outstanding Musées Royaux des Beaux Arts , the pick of Belgium’s many fine art collections, the surprisingly low-key Palais Royal , and the entertaining Musée des Instruments de Musique ( MIM ). Further south, rue de la Régence soon leads to the well-heeled Sablon neighbourhood, whose antique shops and chic bars and cafés fan out from the medieval church of Notre Dame du Sablon . Beyond this is the monstrous Palais de Justice , traditionally one of the city’s most disliked buildings.

Musées Royaux des Beaux Arts

On the edge of place Royale, the Musées Royaux des Beaux Arts ( w www.fine-arts-museum.be ) holds Belgium’s most satisfying all-round collection of fine art, a vast hoard that is exhibited in three interconnected museums, one displaying modern art from the nineteenth century onwards, a second devoted to René Magritte, and a third to older works. Finding your way around is made easy by the English-language, colour-coded museum plan issued at the information desk behind the entrance. The museum also hosts a prestigious programme of temporary exhibitions (colour-coded red on the museum plan) for which a supplementary admission fee is usually required.

Musée d’Art Ancien

In the Musée d’Art Ancien , the blue area displays paintings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, including the Flemish primitives and the Bruegels, and the brown area concentrates on paintings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with the collection of Rubens (for which the museum is internationally famous) as a particular highlight.

The museum owns several paintings by Rogier van der Weyden (1399–1464), who moved to Brussels from his home town of Tournai (in today’s southern Belgium) in the 1430s, becoming the city’s official painter shortly afterwards. When it came to portraiture, Weyden’s favourite technique was to highlight the features of his subject – and tokens of rank – against a black background. His Portrait of Antoine de Bourgogne is a case in point, with Anthony, the illegitimate son of Philip the Good, casting a haughty, tight-lipped stare to his right while wearing the chain of the Order of the Golden Fleece and clasping an arrow, the emblem of the guild of archers.

Weyden’s contemporary, Leuven-based Dieric Bouts (1410–75) is well represented by the two panels of his Justice of the Emperor Otto . The story was well known: in revenge for refusing her advances, the empress accuses a nobleman of attempting to seduce her. He is executed, but the man’s wife remains convinced of his innocence and subsequently proves her point by means of an ordeal by fire – hence the red-hot iron bar she’s holding. The empress then receives her just desserts, being burnt on the hill in the background.

One of the museum’s most interesting paintings is a copy of Temptations of St Anthony by Hieronymus Bosch (1450–1516); the original is in Lisbon’s Museu Nacional. No one is quite sure who painted this triptych – it may or may not have been one of Bosch’s apprentices – but it was certainly produced in Holland in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. The painting refers to St Anthony, a third-century nobleman who withdrew into the desert, where he endured fifteen years of temptation before settling down into his long stint as a hermit. It was the temptations that interested Bosch – rather than the ascetic steeliness of Anthony – and the central panel has an inconspicuous saint sticking desperately to his prayers surrounded by all manner of fiendish phantoms. The side panels develop the theme – to the right Anthony is tempted by lust and greed, and on the left Anthony’s companions help him back to his shelter after he’s been transported through the skies by weird-looking demons.

Another leading Flemish artist, Quinten Matsys (1465–1530) is well represented by the Triptych of the Holy Kindred . Matsys’ work illustrates a turning point in the development of Low Country painting, and in this triptych, completed in 1509, he abandons the realistic interiors and landscapes of his Flemish predecessors in favour of the grand columns and porticoes of the Renaissance. Each scene is rigorously structured, its characters – all relations of Jesus – assuming lofty, idealized poses.

René Magritte

René Magritte (1898–1967) is easily the most famous of Belgium’s modern artists, his disconcerting, strangely haunting images a familiar part of popular culture. Born in a small town just outside Charleroi, he entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels in 1915, and was a student there until 1920. His appearances were, however, few and far between as he preferred the company of a group of artists and friends fascinated with the Surrealist movement of the 1920s. Their antics were supposed to incorporate a serious intent – the undermining of bourgeois convention – but the surviving home movies of Magritte and his chums fooling around don’t appear very revolutionary today.

Initially, Magritte worked in a broadly Cubist manner, but in 1925, influenced by the Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico, he switched over to Surrealism and almost immediately stumbled upon the themes and images that would preoccupy him for decades to come. His work incorporated startling comparisons between the ordinary and the extraordinary, with the occasional erotic element thrown in. Favourite images included men in bowler hats, metamorphic figures, enormous rocks floating in the sky, tubas, fishes with human legs, bilboquets (the cup and ball game), and juxtapositions of night and day – one part of the canvas lit by artificial light, the other basking in full sunlight. He also dabbled in word paintings, mislabelling familiar forms to illustrate (or expose) the arbitrariness of linguistic signs. His canvases were devoid of emotion, deadpan images that were easy to recognize but perplexing because of their setting – perhaps most famously, the man in the suit with a bowler hat and an apple for a face.

He broke with this characteristic style on two occasions, once during the war – in despair over the Nazi occupation – and again in 1948, to revenge long years of neglect by the French artistic establishment. Hundreds had turned up to see Magritte’s first Paris exhibition , but were confronted with crass and crude paintings of childlike simplicity. These so-called Vache paintings created a furore, and Magritte beat a hasty artistic retreat behind a smokescreen of self-justification. These two experiments alienated Magritte from most of the other Surrealists, but this was of little consequence as he was picked up and popularized by an American art dealer, Alexander Iolas, who made him very rich and very famous.

Magritte and his family lived in Jette, a suburb of Brussels, until the late 1950s, and the house is now the Musée René Magritte . He died in 1967, shortly after a major retrospective of his work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York confirmed his reputation as one of the great artists of the twentieth century.

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Planning to visit Brussels? We can help you! At introducingbrussels.com, you will find updated information about the top attractions , where to stay , or the best places to eat and drink .

Brussels Travel Guide

• General Information
• Things to Do
• Getting to Brussels
• Where to Eat
• Where to Stay
• Two Day Itinerary

If you’re planning a trip to Brussels the first things you'll want to read about are the city’s top attractions, where to stay, and the general prices of hotels and restaurants, among other useful information . To make it as easy as possible for you, Civitatis offers you this travel guide to Brussels and the country's nearby cities so you make the most of your holidays.

Why visit Brussels?

You'd like to discover Brussels because you want to try the best chocolate and beer in the world  because you’ve found a very cheap plane ticket, you’ve heard great things about the city, you're a fan of moules-frites (mussels and chips) or simply because you have always wanted to see the city’s most important symbol: The Manneken Piss .

Brussels is the capital of Belgium and is also considered the principal city of the European Union. It has all the characteristics of a metropolis, but at the same time is a small tranquil city. It has extremely modern neighborhoods that contrast with its renowned Art Deco buildings, and the streets of Brussels are packed with charm and history and make for a great getaway.

Any excuse is good to organize a holiday in Brussels , whether it be for 2 days, a week or longer. This city offers good food, interesting museums, and a selection of offbeat attractions, which will not leave you indifferent.

How to organize your trip?

Organizing your travel in advance is key to making the most of your holiday in Belgium's capital . We recommend reading first a little about the city’s history and reading our article on the most frequently asked questions about Brussels , such as travel advice, the languages spoken in Belgium, and its healthcare system. Followed by discovering Brussels’ top attractions and museums .   

Book the hotel in advance!

If you still don't have accommodation booked, we recommend you visit our search engine where you’ll find all types of hotels, hostels, and apartments with the best rates guaranteed . You can get up to 75% off the price you would pay directly at the hotel.

• Hotels in Brussels – Book online for the best rates guaranteed.

top activities

Bruges and Ghent Day Trip On this Bruges and Ghent day trip from Brussels , we'll visit these two great jewels of Belgium. Two must-see cities for any traveller!

Bruges Day Trip Known as “The Venice of the North”, Bruges is one of the most picturesque medieval towns in Europe. Explore it with an English-speaking guide.

Brussels Free Walking Tour Join us on a captivating journey through the vibrant streets of Brussels . Let's explore its rich history, stunning architecture, and unique cultural treasures .

Ghent Day Trip Explore the UNESCO World Heritage city of Ghent & its historic center on this day trip from Brussels accompanied by an English-speaking guide.

Luxembourg and Dinant Full-Day Trip Set off on a day trip to Luxembourg, one of the less-known cities of Europe and on your way back to Brussels stopping at Les Ardennes and the city of Dinant.

Day Trip to Antwerp and Ghent On this day trip from Brussels you'll get to see two of the most beautiful cities in the Belgian region of Flanders: Antwerp and Ghent .

Flanders Fields Tour Join us and explore  one of the most  important scenes from the First World War in Belgium on this  tour to Flanders Fields in Brussels .

Art Nouveau Pass With the Art Nouveau Pass , you can visit 3 Art Nouveau buildings in Brussels - the undisputed capital of Art Nouveau architecture.

Amsterdam Day Trip Travel from to Amsterdam on a 12-hour day trip and explore the city’s canals and tilted houses accompanied by an expert English-speaking guide.

Brussels Open-Top Bus Tour Discover Brussels' most iconic landmarks  and areas on this panoramic tour of the city aboard a comfortable open-top bus ! 

Brussels Hop On Hop Off Bus The Brussels Hop On Hop Off Bus  is the best option for getting to know the main sights around the Belgian capital in a comfortable and entertaining way.

Luxembourg Day Trip Discover the contrasts between the abundant history and modern business centre with this Luxembourg Day Trip. Visit the vibrant city with 170 nationalities.

Choco Story Brussels Learn about the history of cocoa at Choco Story, the Chocolate Museum in Brussels. The ticket also includes a tasting of the museum's irresistible products.

Brussels Pub Crawl If you want to  go out partying in the Belgian Capital  don't miss this  Pub Crawl in Brussels . You'll meet loads of people and have lots of fun!

Brussels Card The Brussels Card offers free admission to 49 museums in Brussels, as well as discounts for numerous guided tours, attractions, restaurants, stores and bars!  

Art Nouveau Free Guided Tour At the end of the 19th century , a movement emerged that perfectly combined these materials. Be captivated by modernism in Brussels with Art Nouveau Guided Tour .

Alternative Brussels Free Walking Tour Forget about chocolate, waffles and beer and set off on an alternative tour of Brussels where you will discover what makes the capital of Belgium truly unique .

Belgian Chocolate & Beer Tasting Tour Sweeten your visit to the Belgian capital on this chocolate & beer tour of Brussels, which includes a tasting of 3 cocoa products & 3 beverages.

Private City Tour of Brussels Book our private guided tour of Brussels and discover the best of the capital of the European Union with an expert English-speaking guide . You'll love it!

Antwerp Day Trip Enjoy a trip from Brussels to Antwerp: The Diamond Capital of the World, and join a guided tour of this trendy medieval city and hometown of Peter Paul Rubens.

Belgian Chocolate Workshop at Choco Story Become a master chef for a day & learn how to make  Belgian chocolates with the help of a professional chocolate maker with this workshop in Brussels.

Mini-Europe Ticket Discover fabulous miniatures of the most famous monuments in Europe when you buy this ticket for the amazing Mini-Europe Park in Brussels .

Hard Rock Cafe Lunch or Dinner Enjoy American-style music and delicious food with the Hard Rock Cafe Lunch or Dinner. Have fun at the restaurant in the Belgian capital at the Grand Place.

Belgian Beer Tour Embark on a fascinating  tour of Brussels , where we'll delve into the captivating world of beer , exploring the art of brewing that makes Belgian beer  so great!

Train World Ticket Do you want to discover the history of the oldest train network in Europe ? Book your ticket for the Train World museum and travel back in time.

Private Tour: Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp Surrender to the charm of Belgium's three most beautiful cities: Ghent, Bruges and Antwerp on a private tour from Brussels with an English-speaking guide.

The Brussels City Card includes free access to Atomium  and  49 museums and monuments in the capital, and excellent discounts for shops, restaurants and pubs.

Historic Brussels: The Origins of the City Adventure Quest On this  Historical  Brussels: The Origins of the City   Adventure Quest , you'll solve riddles and follow clues while touring the city. Discover Brussels' secrets!

Belgian Beer World Ticket If you're in Brussels, don't miss the chance to uncover the secrets of Belgian brewing traditions with a ticket to Belgian Beer World . Plus, enjoy a tasting!

Belgian Lunch or Dinner at Restaurant Bouillon If you want to delight in an  authentic Belgian meal , don't miss this  lunch or dinner at Restaurant Bouillon , a traditional brasserie in Brussels.

Brussels Chocolate, Beer and French Fries Tour Experience an authentic gourmet experience on our chocolate, beer and french fries tour in Brussels. Enjoy some of the best treats Belgium has to offer.

Brussels Christmas Bus Tour Immerse yourself in the magic of the holiday season on this Christmas Bus Tour through Brussels , turning the Belgian capital into a winter wonderland!

On this excursion to Keukenhof and Delft , we'll travel to the Netherlands to enjoy the colorful Dutch spring and see sprawling fields of beautiful tulips.

Free Tour of the European Quarter In this free tour of the European Quarter , we'll visit one of the most elegant areas in Brussels . Join us to discover the contrasts in the Belgian capital.

Brussels Comic Tour Belgium is spelled with a b for "bandé dessinée ", the French word for Ninth Art . In this comic tour of Brussels  we'll see various urban vignettes .

Introducingbeussels.com has been created for travelers like you, by travelers like you, based on personal experiences. We'll try to help you to plan your trip as comprehensively as possible, saving money and getting to know some of the little tricks to get the most out of your time.

The information contained in this guide has been updated in December 2022 . If you see any errors or anything which should be changed, we would be happy to hear from you .

Whether you’re looking for a weekend break or a longer trip, Belgium has a lot to offer to tourists.

If you enjoy walking, sports and the outdoors, the Ardennes , which are the green heart of Belgium, are your place to go. If you prefer the beach or enjoy cycling, you will not be able to resist the call of our seaside !

Our prestigious art cities are magnificent, even if you are not a fan of history, architecture or culture.

Belgians love gastronomy . They love good food and will invite you to taste their special beers and cheeses and obviously also their chocolate, bonbons, endives, beef stew, speculaas and the like. And the fries are simply legendary.

But above all, Belgium is a place of fun: it has a very vibrant cultural scene (exhibits, concerts, festivals, theatre, dance, etc.) and its night live is one big celebration.

Adressen en websites

• Visit.brussels Website: https://visit.brussels
• Visit Flanders Website: http://www.visitflanders.com
• Wallonia Tourism Website: http://walloniabelgiumtourism.co.uk/

Brussels: 20 things to do and see in the city center

W hat are your favorites things to do in the city center of Brussels ? You’ll find my answers in this blog post where I present what you can do and discover in the center of Brussels. Yes, there is the Grand Place and Manneken Pis, but many other things too. Beyond the visits, it’s quite an experience to live the Brussels life. And since the historic center of Brussels is the most visited and touristy area of the capital, I hope to give you an overview of what you can do there. If you come to Brussels, here is a list of 20 activities and places to discover in the center!

What to visit and do in Brussels center.

1. see the grand place in bloom or in the spotlight.

The Grand Place in Brussels is beautiful! But even if you have already seen it, there are some events that are worth the detour. I’m talking about the “Grand Place in bloom” week that takes place every two years in August. It’s the occasion to go inside the city hall to admire the flower carpet from the balcony. See the Flower Carpet website for more information. The Christmas season is also magical when the Grand Place is beautifully illuminated.

2. Visit the Magritte Museum

Magritte is a Belgian artist known throughout the world. Master of surrealism, Magritte realized hundreds of works that we find today in this museum.  I think that this museum is really a “must see” when you are in Brussels. You can visit the museum from top to bottom (you go down the floors, year by year), discovering the works of the artist that reflect his artistic evolution. Information and prices on the website of the Museum .

3. Walk through the secret dead ends

There are some nice surprises in the capital, such as the 28 “almost secret” dead ends that can be found in the city center. Some of them are used to go to a bar or a brasserie, others are residential dead ends. To find them: keep your eyes open.

4. Finding Manneken Pis, Jeanneke Pis and their dog

Manneken Pis , the little boy who has been peeing for almost 400 years, attracts crowds. But did you know that there is a female version of Manneken Pis, Jeanneke Pis , who can be found in the impasse de la Fidélité near the Rue des Bouchers and also Zinneke Pis , their dog, who can be found at the corner of the Rue des Chartreux and the Rue du Vieux-Marché-aux-Grains. The beautiful family of the Pis.

5. Stroll through the Galeries Royales Saint Hubert

The Galeries Saint Hubert were built in 1847 and were the very first shopping malls in Europe. Incredible! They are beautiful, with a glazed ceiling of arches. You can walk around and enjoy shopping, going to the movies or having a drink.

6. Discover the history of Belgium at the Belvue Museum

This is really one of my favorite discoveries of the year. The Belvue Museum is a 100% Belgian museum that proposes to go through the history of Belgium since 1830 until today. It is specially dedicated to democracy and the history of Belgium. Everything is explained in a very educational and funny way, there are many archives (objects, photos and videos) and everything is very clear (even for children). The icing on the cake: the building is beautiful. It is indeed a former luxury hotel.

7. Visit the Museum of Musical Instruments and its terrace

Just above Mont des Arts, there is this Art Nouveau building that everyone looks at: Old England. It’s the Musical Instruments Museum which collects more than 7000 instruments from all eras. And if you don’t want to visit the Museum, you can at least go to the restaurant located on the top floor (yes, there is an elevator) since the view is quite impressive. Info and prices on the MIM website .

8. Greeting Tintin at the Comic Strip Museum

It’s impossible to come to Brussels without seeing all the comic book references hidden in the city. The Comic Strip Museum (Belgian Comic Strip Center) gives you an idea of the importance of the comic strip in Belgium by presenting more than 6,000 original comic strips and world-famous artists.  Mainly, the museum pays tribute to Tintin, the famous reporter created by Hergé in 1929. PS: the building in which the museum is located was designed by Victor Horta. Info and prices on the website of the Belgian Comic Strip Center.

9. Find the Belgian comics on the facades of Brussels

Brussels can also be visited outdoors by following in the footsteps of the most famous Belgian comics. To pay homage to the great Belgian cartoonists, the city of Brussels has created gigantic murals (Tintin, Asterix, Smurfs, Spirou…) on several facades of the center. You can find a map “Parcours BD” at the Tourist Office in order to find them all and to discover both the center of Brussels and all these frescos. Or you can decide to discover them randomly during a walk in the city…

10. Taste one of the 2004 beers on offer at Delirium

If you like beer, you’ll love Brussels. Near the Grand Place, impasse de la Fidélité, there is the Delirium, a bar that is never empty. Its particularity is to offer a menu (which looks like a big book like a Bible) with more than 2000 beers to taste. The Delirium offers Belgian beers, but also beers from all over the world. There is something for everyone!  It’s time to let yourself be tempted by a beer with speculoos, honey, chocolate or pepper for example. See their website.

11. Take a break at the Halles Saint-Géry

Between the Bourse and Place Saint-Catherine, you will find Les Halles Saint-Géry and various bars in the area. The atmosphere is quite festive and there is always an event or an exhibition to discover.

12. Walk around Place Sainte Catherine and have an aperitif

The Place Sainte Catherine is a very lively place. It is here that the Christmas Market and various events are held throughout the year. It’s a nice area to walk around but also to take a little break. There are several nice bars and cafés (like the Via Via, where you can use some board games) and the Café Béguin which organizes jazz or groove concerts several nights a week, a great atmosphere every time!

13. Discover the Kanal, the Belgian Pompidou Centre

The Kanal – Centre Pompidou – in Brussels will be the largest cultural institution in Brussels, with 35,000 m2 dedicated to artistic creation. The center reopens on September 24 for a first exhibition, and the final opening will take place in 2022. Information and prices on the KANAL website .

14. Take a FREE Walking Tour

This is something I’ve never done in Brussels before and yet I do it everywhere I travel: a Free Walking Tour. These are tours organized by locals or city enthusiasts who take us on foot to discover the little secrets and anecdotes of a city. A pleasant way to discover a city and its little secrets.

15. Admire the sunset on Place Polaert, in front of the Palace of Justice

Even if there is no incredible view in Brussels, I invite you to the Place Polaert, just in front of the Palace of Justice, at sunset. The wide view on the whole city is quite impressive.

16. Take some pictures at Mont des Arts

Mont des Arts is a bit of a place where everyone stops to take a nice picture of Brussels.

17. See the Royal Palace and walk in the Royal Park

The Royal Palace in Brussels is the seat of the Belgian constitutional monarchy. The Belgian royal family has not lived there for more than a century, but the building is worth seeing from the outside (it looks like an English Royal Palace) and also from the inside (you can visit it every year between the end of July and the end of August). Just across the street is the Royal Park which is a very nice park in the center of the city.

18. Visit the Cathedral of Saints Michael and Gudule

Beautiful from the outside as well as the inside, the Cathedral of Saints Michael is an emblematic monument of the city of Brussels. It was originally built with a Romanesque architecture, but was later transformed into a Gothic style church. The Cathedral is very important since it is here that the King and Queen of Belgium were married.

19. Eat at the Food Market “Wolf

WOLF is the newest trendy food market in Brussels. Located in the rue Fossé aux Loups, behind the Opera, WOLF is 16 restaurants from all over the world in one place. What I like is to eat on these big wooden tables with friends and let everyone choose the dish they want. For more info, see their website .

20. Having a drink on top of a roof top with a “view

One of my favorite things to do (especially in summer) is to enjoy the roof tops in town. The opportunity to have a drink, be with friends, and enjoy a beautiful view of Brussels. There are several rooftops, some open occasionally, others all year long. The entrance is often free.  However, the rooftop at the top of the Viage casino (Place De Brouckère) is really hot.

I should probably add a few points about Brussels food: waffles, chocolates, fries, mussels, beer,… I think that will be for a future article 🙂 In the meantime, here is my little list of what you can do, only in the center. Outside the center, there is the Marolles district (which I love) and the Parc du Cinquantenaire. More articles in preparation…

Did I forget something? Don’t hesitate to leave me a comment with your experiences!

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Escapade to salerno {amalfi coast}.

PETIT GUIDE DU LAC ATITLÁN 🇬🇹 Voici quelques activités incontournables à faire et à vivre lors d’un séjour sur le lac Atitlán au Guatemala 
 🌈 Se balader dans les rues colorées de San Juan La Laguna 🛶 Faire du kayak ou du paddle sur le lac ⛰️ Faire l’ascension du Rostro Maya au lever de soleil 🧶 Découvrir l’artisanat local et visiter les Finca de café 🥾 Partir en randonnée entre Santa Cruz et San Marcos 🥙 Manger au restaurant communautaire Café Sabor Cruceño de Santa Cruz La Laguna 🧘🏽 Prendre un verre ou un cours de yoga au Eagle Nest à San Marcos La Laguna 🗿Arpenter la rue Santander pour faire ses achats à Panajachel 🌮 Faire un tour sur les marchés locaux de chaque village 🛖 Dormir chez l’habitant à San Juan La Laguna 
🎨 Découvrir le village de Santa Catarina Palopó et ses maisons colorées grâce à Pintando el Cambio 📚Suivre un cours d’espagnol Se déplacer sur le lac Atitlán 🚤  Tous les villages peuvent se rejoindre en lancha (bateau traditionnel)
⏰ Départ de 6h à 17h
🏷️ 25Q/pers (2,90€) par trajet ↠ Retrouve la suite et toutes les infos pratiques dans mon article sur le blog « Guatemala: 5 jours sur le lac Atitlán » ↞ #atitlan #visitguatemala #guateimpresionante #voyage #guidevoyage #blogvoyage #blogbelge

MES 10 COUPS DE COEUR À ANTIGUA 🇬🇹 Considérée comme la plus belle ville d’Amérique centrale, voici mes 10 coups de cœur à Antigua 💛 Se promener dans le centre historique et aux alentours de l’Arche Santa Catalina 🌿 Se poser au Parque Central pour observer la ville et faire un tour au musée national des arts (MUNAG) 🌞 Se balader dans les marchés locaux et les boutiques artisanales 🌮 Manger local à Las Casas de las Mixtas, El Portón ou Rincón antigueño ⛪️ Visiter l’église La Merced et admirer les magnifiques détails de sa façade 🥾 Rejoindre le Cerro de la Cruz pour la plus belle vue sur Antigua 🌸 Visiter les ruines du Couvent Santa Clara, l’un des plus beaux couvents de la ville 💃🏼 Prendre un cours de salsa & bachata 🏺 Voir les ruines du Couvent des Capucines qui nous plonge dans une autre époque 🌋 Faire l’ascension du volcan Acatenango pour se rapprocher du El Fuego et vivre une expérience incroyable ! ↠ Sauvegarde ce guide pour ne rien oublier ↞ #visitguatemala #visitantigua #guateimpresionante #voyage #guidevoyage #blogvoyage #beautifuldestinations

Women of the world 💗✊🏼🌸 En cette journée internationale des droits des femmes, je souhaite mettre en avant les femmes que j’ai croisé ces derniers mois Ces portraits illustrent la diversité et la richesse féminine à travers le monde. Derrière chacun de ces regards et de ces sourires il y a une histoire de courage, de résilience, de force, de détermination, de persévérance… Et finalement, c’est pour chaque femme sur Terre qu’il faut encore lutter pour la #journeeinternationaledesdroitsdesfemmes [EN] On this International Women’s Rights Day, I’d like to talk about the women I’ve met over the last few months These portraits illustrate the diversity and richness of women around the world. Behind each of these looks and smiles is a story of courage, resilience, strength, determination and perseverance... And finally, it is for every woman on earth that we must continue to fight for International Women’s Rights Day #womensrights #womenoftheworld #womenportraits #womenbeauty

Imagine tu es un oiseau et tu peux aller où tu veux 😍 Tu irais où ? Moi c’est sûr, je retournerai sur le volcan El Fuego au Guatemala 🌋 🦜🇬🇹 [EN] Imagine you’re a bird and you can go anywhere you want 😍 Where would you go? I’d definitely go back to the El Fuego volcano in Guatemala 🌋 🦜🇬🇹 #guatemala #visitguatemala #antigua #acatenango #elfuego #volcano #djimini #dronevideo

Guatemala’s vibes 🇬🇹✨ On est parti découvrir le Guatemala du nord au sud, du Pacifique aux Caraïbes, des volcans aux ruelles colorées des villages mayas … et c’était juste merveilleux ! Ces prochaines semaines je partagerai tout le détail sur notre voyage et notre itinéraire ↠ Qui d’autre aime cette ambiance toute en couleur ? #guatemala #guatemala🇬🇹 #visitguatemala #guateimpresionante #voyage #beautifuldestinations

Mon plus beau lever de soleil ? Cette vue sur le mont Bromo en Indonésie 🌋 Tous les réveils aux aurores sont magiques mais regarder le volcan Bromo s’illuminer, seconde après seconde, pendant qu’il crache de la fumée et voir le jour se lever face à ce paysage lunaire reste pour moi un moment inoubliable depuis le début de notre voyage. ↠ Vous vous souvenez d’un lever de soleil qui vous a marqué ? C’était où ? 𖤥 Bromo, Java, Indonesia #volcan #bromo #java #indonesie #sunrise#wonderfulindonesia #exploreindonesia

Portraits de femmes 📸 Je me suis donnée comme défi de mettre en avant les femmes du monde entier. C’est ma manière de rendre visible les femmes, leur travail, leur mission, leur culture, pendant mes voyages 🫶🏼 Voici une petite série de clichés pris dans le village de Santa Catarina Palopó, sur le lac Atitlan au Guatemala. Ces femmes d’origine Maya fabriquent à la main la majorité des tissus et des articles que l’on retrouve sur les marchés dans tout le Guatemala. ↠ Quelle est votre photo préférée ? ☺️ #guatemala #visitguatemala #culturemaya #portraitsvoyage #portraitsfemmes #photographiedevoyage

GUIDE POUR L’ACATENANGO & EL FUEGO 🌋 Voici quelques infos & conseils pour partir faire l’ascension du volcan Acatenango pendant 2 jours et 1 nuit 📍L’ascension commence dans le village de San Jose Caldeira, à 1 heure de route d’Antigua ⏰ Il faut compter entre 4 et 5h pour atteindre le campement, en fonction du rythme du groupe 🧤Prévoir des vêtements chauds pour la nuit. Nous avons loué gants, bonnet, pull et bâton pour 5q/pièce (0,60€) 🥾 On monte plus de 1200m de dénivelé positif mais c’est faisable si on prend son temps et qu’on a de bonnes chaussures de rando 🌋 Pour se rapprocher du cratère d’El Fuego et voir les explosions du volcan de plus près, il faut partir pour une marche supplémentaire d’environ 3h A/R ⛺️ On dort dans un campement qui se situe à 3600m d’altitude. Tout est déjà sur place: matelas, sac de couchage 🥘 Tous nos repas étaient inclus mais prévoir des snacks et des barres vitaminées + 3 à 4 litres d’eau par personne pour les 2 jours 💦 Pas de douche au camp: prévoir des lingettes nettoyantes et des vêtements et chaussettes de rechange pour être au sec ♥️ L’ascension du volcan Acatenango fait partie des plus belles expériences de notre voyage au Guatemala ! ↠ Sauvegarde ce guide pour ne rien oublier ↞ #guatemala #visitguatemala #acatenango #elfuego #volcano #tourdumondeencouple

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About brussels, "capital of the european union".

Brussels is the capital of Belgium, the Flemish region, the Brussels-Capital region, the Flemish and French communities and the second most cosmopolitan city in the world.

Brussels played a key role in the creation of Europe , and is often referred to as the capital of Europe. As a matter of fact, Belgium is one of the six founding countries of the European Economic Community and has made the greatest contribution to the creation of the European Union. It is for this reason that Brussels is home the EU, Nato and many international agencies and companies.

Historically, Brussels enjoyed a strategic geographical location and was established on major trade routes during the Middle Ages. Many great names in history have lived in Brussels, such as Philippe Le Bon, the Duke of Burgundy, the Emperor Charles V and many others.

Things to do and see in Brussels

Brussels has a rich historical and cultural heritage . It is a city of art (the Flemish Primitives, Brueghel the Elder, Magritte, Comic, etc.) characterized by a wide variety of architectural styles : gothic, renaissance, baroque, Art Nouveau , Art Déco, neoclassical and contemporary. Moreover, Brussels offers a large selection of beers , chocolates , fries and waffles .

Bravo Discovery has developed several tours and activities to provide the best experience of Brussels. We also organise day trips to the main touristic cities of Belgium: Bruges , Ghent and Antwerp .

We are specialists in responsible tourism and work in partnership with the Brussels Tourist Office (visit.brussels).

Our guided tours are available in many languages: English, French , Spanish , German , Dutch , Italian and moreic.

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Minister Blair announces additional military assistance for Ukraine at the 23rd meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group

From: National Defence

News release

Today, the Honourable Bill Blair, Minister of National Defence, participated in the 23rd Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) meeting in Brussels, Belgium, hosted by United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III. The meeting brought together representatives from more than 50 countries. Minister Blair and his counterparts reaffirmed their unwavering support for Ukraine and received a battlefield update from Ukraine’s Defence Minister and general staff.

June 13 , 2024 – Brussels, Belgium – National Defence / Canadian Armed Forces

Today, the Honourable Bill Blair, Minister of National Defence, participated in the 23rd Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) meeting in Brussels, Belgium, hosted by United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd J . Austin III. The meeting brought together representatives from more than 50 countries . Minister Blair and his counterparts reaffirmed their unwavering support for Ukraine and received a battlefield update from Ukraine’s Defence Minister and general staff.

At today’s meeting, Minister Blair announced that Canada plans to send an initial tranche of 2,300 CRV7 rocket motors to Ukraine. The decommissioned rocket motors were previously used by the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) on CF-18 fighter aircraft. Over the past few months, Magellan Aerospace and Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) have been testing the rocket motors to ensure their viability following a request from the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) for this equipment.

Minister Blair further announced that Canada will donate 29 Nanuk Remote Weapons Systems from surplus Canadian Armed Forces inventory. The Nanuk is a remotely controlled weapon station that can be integrated on various armoured vehicle platforms and used for different mission profiles. The Nanuk Systems were manufactured by Rheinmetall Canada and are used by the Canadian Army on its light armoured vehicles.

In addition to these donations, Canada will send more than 130,000 rounds of surplus small arms ammunition to the AFU.

Minister Blair also confirmed that the first four of 50 Armoured Combat Support Vehicles built by Canadian workers in London, Ontario are heading to the AFU. The first four vehicles, which are the ambulance variant of the vehicle, will be delivered to Europe in the coming weeks where Ukrainian troops will be trained in their use. Minister Blair also confirmed that:

• The delivery of the previously announced 900 Canadian-made drones will begin this month. These drones are capable of surveillance and gathering, as well as transportation and delivery of supplies. More deliveries will follow in the coming months.
• The 10 rigid-hull multi-role boats, including training, that Canada previously committed to providing to Ukraine will be delivered in July. These boats will support Ukraine’s maritime operations including search and rescue, troop and cargo transport, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

Following the UDCG meeting, Minister Blair signed the Armour Capability Coalition Letter of Intent, formalizing Canada’s membership in the Coalition. Canada has been actively participating in meetings of the Armour Capability Coalition since its establishment in January.

“Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion is also a fight for democracy, freedom, and human rights. We cannot let Ukraine down – because what happens in Ukraine will help determine the future of the international rules that keep us all safe. Canada will continue to stand with Ukraine until its victory.” -       The Honourable Bill Blair, Minister of National Defence

Quick facts

Initial testing on the CRV7 motors is complete and a report is being finalized. National Defence is also seeking the requisite waivers and permits to transport the equipment safely. Once the report is final, and the Department of National Defence receives the requisite waivers and permits required to transport them to Europe, Canada intends to send the initial tranche of motors to Ukraine.

Magellan Aerospace and DRDC continue to test additional samples of CRV7 rocket motors. As further testing results are made available, Canada will assess the feasibility of additional CRV7 motor donations.

The UDCG was created by the United States Secretary of Defense in April 2022 to allow Allies and partners to synchronize donations, consult, and coordinate military assistance to Ukraine, and build up the capabilities of the AFU. Convening monthly at the ministerial level, the UDCG now brings together more than 50 countries .

Canada is a member of the UDCG’s Armour, Air Force, and Drone capability coalitions.

Since February 2022, Canada has committed over $14 billion in total assistance to Ukraine, including $4 billion in military assistance. This includes Leopard 2 main battle tanks, armoured combat support vehicles, anti-tank weapons, small arms, M777 howitzers and associated ammunition, high-resolution drone cameras, winter clothing, and more. Canada is also contributing to multinational efforts to train pilots and maintainers to support Ukraine’s F-16s.

Since the launch of Operation UNIFIER, the CAF has trained more than 41,000 members of the AFU. Canada has announced the extension of this mission until March 2026 , so that the CAF can continue to respond to Ukraine’s training needs.

Canada continues to train AFU members under Operation UNIFIER, with approximately 300 CAF members currently deployed in the United Kingdom, Poland, and Latvia in various roles such as the provision and coordination of training, national command support, and the facilitation and delivery of military donations to Ukraine in coordination with Allies.

Since late March 2022 , the RCAF has been transporting Ukraine-bound military aid donated by Canada, partners, and Allies. To date, the RCAF has transported over 19 million pounds of military donations.

Associated links

• CRV7 Rocket Weapon System
• Canadian military support to Ukraine
• Operation UNIFIER
• Agreement on security cooperation between Canada and Ukraine
• Canada’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Diana Ebadi Press Secretary and Communications Advisor Office of the Minister of National Defence Email: [email protected] Media Relations Department of National Defence Phone: 613-904-3333 Email: [email protected]

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G7 Leaders Agree on Plan for $50 Billion Loan to Ukraine

Biden and Zelensky also signed a 10-year security agreement aimed at making Ukraine’s military more self-sufficient. “A lasting peace for Ukraine must be underwritten by Ukraine’s own ability to defend itself,” Biden said.

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Biden and Zelensky Deliver Remarks at G7 Summit

G7 leaders agreed on a plan to give ukraine a $50 billion loan to help it buy weapons and begin to rebuild..

“President Zelensky and I have just now signed that agreement between the United States and Ukraine. Our goal is to strengthen Ukraine’s credible defense and deterrence capabilities for the long term. A lasting peace for Ukraine must be underwritten by Ukraine’s own ability to defend itself now, and to deter future aggression any time in the future. The United States is going to help ensure that Ukraine can do both, not by sending American troops to fight in Ukraine, but by providing weapons and ammunition, expanding intelligence sharing, continuing to train brave Ukrainian troops at bases in Europe and the United States.” “Today is a truly historic day, and we have signed the strongest agreement between Ukraine and the U.S. since our independence. And this is an agreement on security, and thus, on the protection of human life. This is an agreement on cooperation, and thus, on how our nations will become stronger. This is an agreement on steps to guarantee sustainable peace, and therefore it benefits everyone in the world because the Russian war against Ukraine is a real, real global threat.”

David E. Sanger and Steven Erlanger

Here are the latest developments.

The United States and the other large Group of 7 economies agreed Thursday on a plan to give Ukraine a $50 billion loan to help it buy weapons and begin to rebuild damaged infrastructure at a crucial moment in the war, when Russia has the momentum on the battlefield.

The loan is expected to be repaid using interest earned on $300 billion in frozen Russian assets, which are mostly in European banks. Announced at a G7 summit in southern Italy, the loan will be underwritten by the United States, but American officials say they expect their allies, including members of the European Union, to provide some of the funds.

President Biden also signed a 10-year security agreement with President Volodymyr Zelensky. President Biden said the agreement would make Ukraine self-sufficient and put it on the road to becoming a member of NATO.

“Our goal is to strengthen Ukraine’s credible defense and deterrence capabilities for the long term,” Mr. Biden said. “A lasting peace for Ukraine must be underwritten by Ukraine’s own ability to defend itself now and to deter future aggression.”

Mr. Biden is trying to persuade allies that the United States will continue backing Ukraine even if former President Donald J. Trump, who has spoken openly of pulling the United States out of NATO , prevails in the November election. But if re-elected, Mr. Trump could abandon any security agreement with Ukraine, underscoring the political challenges shadowing Mr. Biden and other G7 leaders.

Here’s what else to know:

On the eve of the summit, the Biden administration announced new financial sanctions aimed at interrupting the fast-growing technological links between China and Russia that American officials believe are aimed at bolstering Russia’s military in its war with Ukraine.

Mr. Biden isn’t the only G7 leader arriving in Italy under siege politically . Polls suggest that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain will be unseated in elections in less than three weeks. And President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany saw their parties humbled by far-right rivals in European elections just days ago.

Later in the G7 summit, the leaders will tackle topics including migration and artificial intelligence, an issue that Pope Francis plans to address on Friday.

Erica L. Green

The news conference has wrapped up. President Biden and President Zelensky have left the microphones.

President Biden, in response to a question from a reporter at the G7, expressed his support for his son Hunter Biden, who was convicted on three felony gun charges this week, and reiterated that he would not pardon him.

Biden fielded a shouted question from a reporter at the end of the news conference: whether he would commute his son's sentence. “No,” he replied.

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Zelensky identifies the goal of the security agreement with the United States as making a “bridge” to Ukraine’s membership in NATO.

Zelensky calls it a “historic day,” saying that he and Biden have signed the strongest agreement between the U.S. and Ukraine since their independence.

In remarks on the new security agreement, President Biden reiterates that the pact is designed to make Ukraine self-sufficient and put the country on the road to NATO membership. He also salutes the plan to use the interest from frozen Russian assets to provide nearly $50 billion to Ukraine, calling it a “significant outcome.”

President Biden and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine walked out together for a news conference here in Italy, and immediately signed the new security agreement and shook hands. The two leaders are now starting their remarks. [This post originally misidentified the site of the news conference as Brussels.]

The deal outlines a long-term effort to train and equip Ukraine’s forces, provide more modern weapons and help the country build its own self-sustaining military industry.

Alan Rappeport

The Treasury secretary, Janet L. Yellen, an architect of the plan to use Russia’s central bank assets to help Ukraine, said at an event in New York on Thursday that the G7 agreement demonstrated to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, that Western allies were “completely united” in support of Ukraine. “We intend to give Ukraine the resources it needs to wage an effective war against Russia, and to support their direct budget needs,” she said, “and we’re going to provide a very meaningful chunk of resources.”

Yellen also said that the interest from Russia’s assets could continue to help bolster Ukraine, making it harder for Putin to wait out the West. “This is the first tranche, and if necessary there’s more behind it,” she said. “In a sense, we’re getting Russia to help pay for the damage it’s caused.”

Japan commits $4.5 billion for Ukraine, Zelensky says.

Japan has agreed to provide $4.5 billion in aid for Ukraine this year, part of a 10-year security deal signed by the two countries on Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said.

The agreement significantly increases Japan’s support for Ukraine at a critical moment in its war with Russia and underscores Japan’s efforts to strengthen its security and diplomatic ties with Europe after the full-scale conflict began in 2022.

“For Japan, this type of agreement and this level of support is a breakthrough,” Mr. Zelensky said on social media . “We see this and thank Japan for its unwavering solidarity.”

Mr. Zelensky said Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan had signed the pact as the leaders gathered for the Group of 7 summit discussed other plans to support Ukraine.

Ukraine’s deal with Japan included commitments on defense support, humanitarian aid and technical cooperation, Mr. Zelensky said.

Mr. Kishida said in a statement earlier this week that Japan would “do its utmost to ensure” that peace was restored in Ukraine.

Ukraine has signed several similar agreements with wealthy nations during the war.

Last December, Japan outlined a $1 billion assistance commitment for Ukraine, and signaled a willingness to later increase the support to $4.5 billion.

“The scale of the involvement is an escalation,” Daniel Sneider, a lecturer in East Asian studies at Stanford University, said of Japan. “They want to march in lock step with NATO. That’s a pretty big deal in Japan.”

Separately, President Biden was expected to sign a 10-year U.S. security agreement with Ukraine on Thursday, the first day of a three-day G7 summit in Italy.

The leaders of the G7 nations — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States — also agreed on a plan to provide Ukraine with a $50 billion loan to help it buy weapons and restore infrastructure.

Steven Erlanger and David E. Sanger

U.S. and other large economies agree on a plan to loan $50 billion to Ukraine.

The United States and the West’s other large economies have agreed on a plan to issue a roughly $50 billion loan to Ukraine that would be repaid by interest and profits from nearly $300 billion in frozen Russian assets held in the West.

The promise of much-needed financial support for weapons and to begin to rebuild damaged infrastructure comes as Ukraine has been forced to sell some state assets and as the momentum in the war on its territory has shifted in favor of its foe, Russia, whose forces launched a full-scale invasion in 2022.

President Biden agreed to have the United States underwrite the entire loan, but American officials said they expected allies, including members of the European Union, to provide some of the upfront funds.

The loan would eventually be repaid through interest and profits earned on the frozen Russian assets, which would serve as collateral.

In a news conference Thursday with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in Italy, on the sidelines of the Group of 7 summit , Mr. Biden said the agreement was another reminder to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that “we’re not backing down. In fact, we’re standing together against this illegal aggression.”

In New York on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, an architect of the plan, said that the profits from Russia’s assets would provide Ukraine with additional aid in the future, making it harder for Mr. Putin to wait out the West.

“This is the first tranche, and if necessary there’s more behind it,” Ms. Yellen said. “In a sense, we’re getting Russia to help pay for the damage it’s caused.”

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Thursday that all the members of the Group of 7, the world’s wealthiest large democracies, would participate, including the European Union itself, but the extent of each member’s participation was being worked out by finance ministers and other technical experts.

The European Union might contribute up to half the money, a senior European official said, speaking anonymously under normal diplomatic ground rules, while American officials said that Washington would make up any remaining difference.

The issue is complicated, because if the Russian assets are unfrozen or if interest rates drop significantly, then the interest and profits may not cover the loan, requiring a burden-sharing arrangement with other countries to guarantee repayment.

The idea of a loan using the assets is an American one, given the need to get money to Ukraine quickly and before the November U.S. election that could return Donald J. Trump, who has been more critical of aid to Ukraine, to the presidency.

The European Union had agreed to use only the yearly profits and interest from the assets — perhaps $3 billion — to aid Ukraine, but embraced the essence of the American plan once the issue of who would guarantee the loan seemed to have been resolved.

The money is expected to be disbursed through various channels, instead of being directly handed to Ukraine, so that it will be used for Ukraine’s pressing military, budget and reconstruction needs, the European official said.

Alan Rappeport and Tim Balk contributed reporting.

The NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, says that delays in sending military support “created big problems for Ukrainians on the battlefield” this year. His comments were part of a push to create a new, more predictable system of military aid to Ukraine after the United States delayed approving $61 billion for more than six months.

reporting from Brussels

At a meeting of a Ukraine defense alliance, Austin pledges to keep sending military aid.

Reinforcing the support for Ukraine that the Biden administration has expressed during the Group of 7 summit, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III pledged at a high-level gathering in Brussels on Thursday that Washington would keep supplying Ukrainian forces with military hardware to use against continued Russian assaults.

“As we gather this morning, Ukraine’s forces are in a tough fight,” Mr. Austin said at the event, a meeting at NATO headquarters of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a consortium of about 50 nations that have provided military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine during the war. “In Kharkiv and elsewhere, the Kremlin continues to intensify its bombardment of Ukraine’s cities and civilians, and Ukraine urgently needs more air-defense capabilities to defend its skies.”

The U.S. defense secretary said that Ukrainian forces were both fending off Russia’s assault around Kharkiv in northern Ukraine and “holding strong” along the country’s eastern and southern fronts — although Ukraine has struggled in recent months .

Representatives from more than 40 nations attended the meeting, including all 32 NATO member states, several of what the United States calls its “major non-NATO allies,” and European nations like Georgia and Bosnia and Herzegovina that hope to someday join NATO.

“We have a clear framework we are supporting with Ukraine,” Irakli Chikovani, Georgia’s defense minister, said in an interview before the meeting began. “This is a political and humanitarian framework. This is something that has been declared for many months — since the beginning of the war against Ukraine — and we’re going to stick to that plan.”

Kosovo, which the United States recognized as a sovereign nation in 2008 but that is not universally recognized by members of the United Nations, has also contributed material support to Ukraine as a member of the contact group. Kosovo has been modernizing its military to NATO standards — an expensive and time-consuming process that Ukraine itself is also working to do in the middle of fighting a war.

“We are very determined on the path to joining the alliance,” Ejup Maqedonci, Kosovo’s defense minister, said in an interview at NATO headquarters. “For defense equipment, we are procuring only from NATO countries, mostly from the U.S., the U.K., Turkey and Italy.”

The country has conducted two training sessions on demining for Ukrainian troops and recently provided Kyiv with mortar ammunition and tracks for armored vehicles, Mr. Maqedonci said.

“We procure for ourselves, but we see the war in Ukraine as our war also,” he said.

Mr. Austin announced that Argentina, also a major non-NATO ally of the United States, had joined the coalition and he welcomed the country’s defense minister, Luis Petri, to his first meeting of the group. Argentina committed last year to delivering two Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters to Ukraine, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Mr. Austin said Russia had suffered “staggering losses” thus far in the war, including 350,000 soldiers killed or wounded, thousands of vehicles destroyed and at least 24 vessels sunk, destroyed or damaged in the Black Sea.

“This is a critical moment. The stakes of this war are high. Ukraine’s survival is on the line, but so is all of our security,” Mr. Austin said, adding, “Make no mistake, Ukraine’s partners around the world have its back.”

Mark Landler

Reporting from the G7 summit in Italy

Climate change and aid for Africa have faded as G7 priorities, campaigners say.

One byproduct of a politically weakened Group of 7, critics say, is a weakening of commitments to curb climate change or aid global development. Advocacy groups have turned out in Italy to press the G7 leaders to make concrete commitments to aid for Africa and increasing financing to offset damaging climate change.

But these groups say they have little hope that the meeting will produce tangible results on either. That reflects both the political headwinds these leaders face at home, as well as the legacy of the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine, which have squeezed public finances across the West.

Luca Bergamaschi, the co-founder of Ecco Climate, an Italian climate advocacy group, said he hoped the G7 would commit to increasing the target for global climate financing, which still depends heavily on contributions from the industrialized countries that make up the group.

But beyond a general expression of support by the leaders for expanded financing of projects to reduce carbon emissions, Mr. Bergamaschi said he did not expect “a concrete commitment to increase it.”

Western aid to Africa has similarly suffered, according to One Campaign, an advocacy organization. An analysis released by the group on the eve of the summit concluded that the share of aid going to Africa from Group of 7 countries, as well as the European Union, had fallen to its lowest level since 1973.

That is a result of cuts to aid spending in the United States, Germany, France and other European countries, the group said. It has led to a drop in net financial flows to Africa and greater fiscal pressure on those countries, which are projected to spend $81 billion to service their debts between 2023 and 2025.

“The need for increased investments that drive economic growth and healthy lives in Africa has never been more important, but many partner countries are looking inward instead of forward,” One Campaign’s president, Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli, said in a statement.

David E. Sanger

The U.S. and the West’s other large economies have agreed on a plan to issue a roughly $50 billion loan to Ukraine. The loan would be repaid with interest earned on $300 billion in frozen Russian assets, mostly in European banks. President Biden agreed to have the U.S. underwrite the entire loan, but American officials say they expect allies, including members of the European Union, to provide some of the funds.

The loan comes at a critical moment, when Ukraine is being forced to sell some state assets, and when the momentum in the war has shifted in favor of Russia — meaning that destruction is accelerating, even as Ukraine struggles to rebuild its power plants and destroyed hospitals, communication networks, ports and homes.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, below with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, has arrived at the G7 summit. He is slated to meet with President Biden later today to discuss U.S. support for Ukraine, and the two leaders are scheduled to sign a security agreement and hold a news conference.

NATO allies have pledged more military support to Ukraine during a meeting of the alliance’s defense ministers, their last gathering before a high-level summit in Washington next month. “We are urging allies to step further up, and also to ensure that the assistance is delivered as soon as possible,” Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, told Ukraine’s defense minister, Rustem Umerov.

President Biden and other G7 leaders are currently in a working session on the Middle East. Biden has been working to shore up support for a three-phase cease-fire proposal he announced last month.

G7 leaders, who have been divided over Israel’s conduct of the war, united to back the plan, which the U.N. Security Council has also endorsed. But neither Israel nor Hamas has publicly accepted it, and Biden’s national security adviser said this morning that the U.S. was working to “ bridge the remaining gaps ” between the two sides.

Steven Erlanger

A senior European Union official said that G7 leaders were still working toward a complex agreement on a big loan to Ukraine, financed with the interest from frozen Russian assets, and that the money would be used for Ukraine’s defense and financial needs, and a small part for reconstruction.

After a dispute between the U.S. and the E.U., which holds the bulk of the roughly $300 billion in frozen Russian assets, about who would guarantee the loan, the discussions were moving toward a guarantee by G7 countries that wish to participate, the official said.

Emma Bubola

Reporting from Rome

In a first, Pope Francis will attend the G7 summit.

As leaders from the Group of 7 nations gather this week in southern Italy, they will be joined by representatives from countries at the center of international conflict, from developing nations like Brazil and India, and, for the first time, from the Holy See.

Pope Francis, the Vatican announced, will take part in a discussion on Friday on the ethical implications of artificial intelligence at a session that is open to envoys from countries that are not G7 members. The Vatican said Pope Francis would also have bilateral conversations with some of the visiting leaders, including President Biden and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, who invited him, said the pope’s presence would “make a decisive contribution to defining a regulatory, ethical and cultural framework” for A.I., adding that his participation “brings prestige to our nation and to the entire Group of 7.”

Francis’s participation in the summit comes as the 87-year-old pope was reported this week to have used again an offensive slur to refer to homosexuality, the same pejorative he was accused of using last month. The reports last month prompted a backlash among L.G.B.T.Q. people, toward whom the pope had generally adopted a more welcoming approach.

The pope’s G7 presence breaks with a long tradition in the Roman Catholic Church of refusing such invitations on the basis that a pontiff does not need state leaders or anyone else to offer him a platform to speak, said Alberto Melloni, an Italian church historian.

“The pope already has the floor,” Mr. Melloni said.

But in this case, Pope Francis, who has a record of breaking with conventional behavior, might see the summit as a high-profile opportunity to send another loud message on ending conflicts such as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, Mr. Melloni said.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, told Avvenire, an Italian Catholic daily, that Francis was ready to use “all the means and spaces” available to make the case for peace.

Francis’ invitation to the summit, he added, was also a recognition of the profound ethical implications of the technology he will officially be there to discuss.

The pope has already been caught in the currents of A.I.-generated photographs of Francis wearing a giant white padded jacket, riding a motorcycle and drinking a beer at a music festival have caused widespread glee on social media. But Francis and the Vatican have also highlighted more serious implications of artificial intelligence, including in education, communication, working life, and corporate and government decision-making.

In 2020, the Pontifical Academy for Life, a research institute whose members are selected by the pope, issued a document, the “Rome Call for A.I. Ethics,” that laid out principles for the development and use of the technology. Top players in the field of A.I., including leaders at Microsoft, I.B.M. and Cisco, have signed the document.

Francis himself addressed the subject in a message on New Year’s Day, calling for a global treaty to ensure that A.I. systems preserved space for human mercy, compassion and forgiveness, rather than be plunged into a reality operated by inscrutable algorithms. He said it was vital to understand what effect these technologies will have on individual lives and on societies, on international stability and on peace.

The Rev. Paolo Benanti, who serves as an A.I. ethicist to both the Vatican and the Italian government, said that the pope’s attendance at the G7 meeting emphasized his willingness to engage with pivotal global issues.

“The pope shows that he has these antennae,” Father Benanti told reporters this past week, citing Francis’ other major concerns, such as migration and climate change, adding, “He perceives where the world goes.”

In the seaside town of Savelletri, where the G7 summit is taking place in a luxury tourist resort, residents had high hopes for the pope’s visit. Although tight security protocols mean that locals are unlikely to see Francis in person, many were keeping their fingers crossed for some payoff, however small.

“At least a blessing,” said one 68-year-old resident, Laura Mancini. “He must give that to us.”

Matthew Mpoke Bigg

What is the G7, and why does it matter?

Every year, as the leaders of the world’s wealthiest large democracies gather for a summit, the same questions arise: What exactly is the summit for, and why does the group matter?

The heads of the Group of 7 nations — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States — started their annual summit on Thursday at a luxury hotel in Puglia on the southern Italian coast, overlooking the Adriatic Sea. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the threats posed by China’s economic rise are high on the agenda.

The leaders, along with representatives of the European Union and selected guests, meet to discuss economic issues and major international policies. This year the summit’s host, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy , has also invited other figures including Pope Francis and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India.

Whatever the leaders’ disagreements on the issues, one feature of the summits tends to be a shared overall outlook. Their countries are major trading partners, and even if their share of global trade has declined, they account for about half of the world economy. They also share broadly similar views on trade, security and human rights, giving them enormous influence when they act in concert.

A recent example of that is the war in Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose defense against the Russian invasion of his country has been a rallying point for the G7, is attending again this year.

By the same token, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is one of the group’s most notable absentees. Russia was a member of the group from 1997 until it was excluded in 2014, the year that its forces entered eastern Ukraine and seized Crimea.

The group’s origins go back to the 1973 oil crisis . It grew out of an informal gathering of finance ministers from Britain, France, Japan, the United States and what was then West Germany — initially known as the Big Five — as they tried to agree on a way forward.

Since then, the group and its added members have met dozens of times to work on major issues that affect the international economy, security, trade, equality and climate change. In 2015, the summit paved the way for the Paris agreement to limit global carbon emissions, which was adopted later that year.

The summits are often defined by the most pressing issues of the day: The Sept. 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, the financial crisis of 2008 and the coronavirus pandemic that began in 2019 have all dominated the meetings.

They are also a showcase for cultural diplomacy, as each year’s host country offers examples of the best of its cuisine.

For all the aura of diplomacy at the summit, however, each leader has an eye on domestic politics as well. A leader fresh from an election victory can sometimes arrive with a swagger. For a leader about to face an angry electorate, the reverse can be true. Several of the leaders in Italy this week are in the latter category .

The summit will put on further display the unexpected allyship of President Biden and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, whose far-right politics have drawn comparisons to former President Donald Trump.

Biden, who expressed concern for democracy after Meloni was elected, has since embraced her as a partner and has leaned on her in getting aid to Ukraine . When she visited the White House in March, he said they “have each other’s backs” and “have Ukraine’s back.” At the first roundtable of the summit, the two leaders sat next to each other.

Biden will sign a 10-year pact to aid Ukraine’s military, officials say.

President Biden signed a 10-year security agreement with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Thursday, an effort to signal a long-term American commitment to Ukraine’s future as an independent and sovereign state at a time when the war set off by Russia’s full-scale invasion is deep into its third year. But the accord could easily be upended by the coming American presidential election.

The deal outlines a long-term effort to train and equip Ukraine’s forces, provide more modern weapons and help the Ukrainians build their own self-sustaining military industry that is capable of producing its own arms.

Speaking at the Group of 7 summit in Italy on Thursday, Mr. Biden said the agreement was designed to make Ukraine self-sufficient and put the country on the road to NATO membership. The accord is essentially an executive agreement between two presidents.

The pact is modeled on the kind of long-term security agreements that the United States has with Israel . But the “Israel model” is based on a congressional agreement to provide billions of dollars in aid. The agreement with Ukraine carries a commitment by the Biden administration only to work with Congress on long-term funding.

Given the bitter monthslong wrangling over the $60 billon in aid to Ukraine that Congress passed this spring, there is little appetite for bringing the issue up again until next year. If Mr. Biden were no longer in office, that commitment would mean little.

The new accord does not commit the United States to send forces in to defend Ukrainian territory. According to two administration officials, it requires the United States to “consult” with Ukraine about its needs within hours of any attack on the country.

NATO membership for Ukraine — which President Biden has opposed while the war with Russia is still being fought — might compel the U.S. to send forces if the country was re-invaded by Russia. That is one reason Mr. Biden has resisted.

While Mr. Zelensky embraced the agreement at the news conference with President Biden on Thursday, the Ukrainians are skeptical of these accords. Without congressional funding, the support is largely rhetorical.

Ukrainian officials often talk about the emptiness of the accord known as the Budapest Memorandum , a political agreement signed in December 1994 in which Ukraine agreed to give Russia old Soviet nuclear weapons that had been based in Ukrainian territory. In return, the memorandum committed Russia, the United States and Britain to seek help for Ukraine from the United Nations Security Council if it “should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.”

When Russia annexed Crimea two decades later, in 2014, Western nations said that Russia had violated its commitments to Ukraine, and they made a similar case in 2022, when President Vladimir V. Putin invaded the entire country. The Russians denied that claim, saying the accord had only committed them not to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Wednesday night as Mr. Biden flew to Italy for the G7 summit, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said that the situation was radically different today, and that the United States and the West had already provided Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars in aid.

The new arrangement with Ukraine is not a treaty, so it does not require American security guarantees the way that mutual defense treaties with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines do. And because it is essentially an executive agreement, Donald J. Trump, if re-elected, could abandon the deal, as he abandoned the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran in 2018.

Tim Balk contributed reporting.

President Biden has arrived at Borgi Egnazia, in Puglia, Italy, for the G7 summit. The president’s big priority is to secure a deal among leaders to unlock frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine, but National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the president would gauge the summit’s success on making “tangible progress” on a range of other issues, including Chinese trade practices and the war in Gaza.

NATO defense chiefs pledge more aid for Ukraine, and carve out an exception for Hungary.

As G7 leaders meeting in Italy were focused on Ukraine, NATO’s defense chiefs gathered separately on Thursday in Brussels to pledge additional air defenses, ammunition, drones and other weapons to Kyiv, and to prepare long-term military commitments to be announced next month at a high-level summit in Washington.

But perhaps the most significant boost for Ukraine came in a new agreement that Hungary would not contribute to the military alliance’s war effort — but also would not block it.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary is the NATO ally closest to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and under his leadership Hungary has refused to give Ukraine any weapons or other lethal war support. Hungary has also opposed European Union sanctions against Russia and delayed financial aid to Ukraine , leaving other NATO states worried that Mr. Orban similarly would block additional military support at the alliance’s gathering in July.

“It is well known here that Hungary’s position is different from the majority of NATO member states,” Mr. Orban said on Wednesday after meeting with the NATO secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg.

But Mr. Stoltenberg headed off any Hungarian veto by agreeing that the country would not be expected to contribute to any NATO efforts supporting Ukraine’s military with money, weapons or training.

On Thursday, Mr. Stoltenberg said he did not expect other NATO allies to follow Hungary’s lead.

“There has been as a broad agreement across the alliance for many years, and in particular, since the full-scale invasion in February, that we need to provide military support to Ukraine,” he said. “Hungary has been clear since the beginning that they don’t provide lethal aid, but other allies have.”

Some other allies, like Slovakia, have signaled that they are weary of footing the bill for the war effort. The success of hard-right nationalist parties in some of last weekend’s European Union elections has given rise to concerns that other states may also back away from supporting Ukraine.

Asked if allowing members to opt out of war support for Ukraine would become a new practice in NATO, Defense Minister Pal Jonson of Sweden shrugged off Hungary’s defiance.

“It’s very important that we make progress on supporting Ukraine, and we think that this is a pragmatic way to move forward in this regard,” he said at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday. “The most important thing is that the alliance, as such, can deliver any support to Ukraine.”

Mr. Stoltenberg said the defense ministers’ meeting would also finalize plans for a new role for the alliance in overseeing delivery of military aid and training for Ukraine, and discuss plans to send $43 billion annually to the war effort for the foreseeable future.

David E. Sanger ,  Alan Rappeport ,  Edward Wong and Ana Swanson

Reporting from Washington

On the eve of the summit, the U.S. expanded sanctions on Russia.

The Biden administration on Wednesday announced a series of new financial sanctions aimed at interrupting the fast-growing technological links between China and Russia that American officials believe are a broad effort to rebuild and modernize Russia’s military during its war with Ukraine.

The actions were announced just as President Biden was leaving the country for a meeting in Italy of the Group of 7 industrialized economies, where a renewed push to degrade the Russian economy will be at the top of his agenda.

The measures were coordinated by the Treasury, State and Commerce Departments and aimed to further isolate Russia from the global financial system and cut off its ability to gain access to the technology that powers its military arsenal.

The effort has grown far more complicated in the past six or eight months after China, which had previously sat largely on the sidelines, stepped up its shipments of microchips, machine tools, optical systems for drones and components for advanced weaponry, U.S. officials said. But so far Beijing appears to have heeded Mr. Biden’s warning against shipping weapons to Russia, even as the United States and NATO continue to arm Ukraine.

Although the measures expand the reach of the U.S. sanctions program, the Biden administration has so far held back from imposing sanctions on Chinese or European banks that it believes are helping Russia. The new measures do not restrict banks from facilitating transactions related to Russia’s energy exports, which the Biden administration has allowed to continue out of concern that restricting them could fuel inflation.

Announcing the sanctions, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said in a statement that “Russia’s war economy is deeply isolated from the international financial system, leaving the Kremlin’s military desperate for access to the outside world.”

At the heart of the measures is an expansion of “secondary” sanctions that give the United States the power to blacklist any bank around the world that does business with Russian financial institutions already facing sanctions. This is intended to deter smaller banks, especially in places like China, from helping Russia finance its war effort.

The Treasury Department also imposed restrictions on the stock exchange in Moscow in hopes of preventing foreign investors from propping up Russian defense companies. The sanctions hit several Chinese companies that are accused of helping Russia gain access to critical military equipment such as electronics, lasers and drone components.

In addition to the Treasury Department’s measures, the State Department imposed sanctions on about 100 entities, including companies “engaged in the development of Russia’s future energy, metals, and mining production and export capacity.” And the Commerce Department announced its own set of restrictions, banning American exports to certain addresses in Hong Kong that the United States says are used to set up shell companies to funnel banned goods to Russia.

Mr. Biden has tried before to choke off supplies and financing to Russia, and overestimated the effects of that move. In March 2022, shortly after the war began, he announced an initial round of financial actions and declared, “As a result of these unprecedented sanctions, the ruble almost is immediately reduced to rubble.” It was not. After a brief dive, it recovered, and while today it is not as strong as it was a year ago, the Russian economy has been expanding because of the strength of war-related growth.

Much of that is thanks to China’s effort. It has been buying Russian oil, often at a discount to world prices. And it has ramped up its sale of dual-use goods, especially the microelectronics and software needed to manufacture weapons systems, drones and air defenses.

The result has been the rise of a somewhat parallel war economy involving Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. Many of the firms subject to sanctions are in Hong Kong or just over the border in Shenzhen, the technology manufacturing center of China. Yet administration officials insist that this time, they can choke off what has become a deepening commercial relationship.

In announcing new restrictions on Chinese firms, the Biden administration is also hoping to spur European governments and possibly Asian allies to take similar measures.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken discussed the issue with European counterparts at a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Prague last month, and U.S. officials intend to put it on the agenda of a leaders’ summit in Washington in July.

Mr. Blinken has also warned the Chinese government that it cannot hope to have an amicable relationship with European powers if it props up the Russian defense industry.

At a news conference in Prague on May 31, Mr. Blinken said 70 percent of the machine tools that Russia is importing are coming from China, as well as 90 percent of microelectronics.

“China cannot expect on the one hand to improve relations with countries of Europe while on the other hand fueling the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War,” he said.

Erica L. Green and David E. Sanger

Biden plans a push for frozen Russian assets to help rebuild Ukraine.

Two weeks after President Biden reversed himself and approved firing American weapons into Russian territory, he and his closest allies are preparing a different kind of assault, using the proceeds from Russia’s own financial assets to aid the reconstruction of Ukraine.

For two years, the world’s largest Western economies have debated how to deal with $300 billion in frozen Russian assets, which the Kremlin left in Western financial institutions after the Ukraine invasion began in 2022.

Now, after long debates about whether the West could legally turn those assets over to the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, the allies seem on the brink of a compromise, to be announced at the Group of 7 summit in Italy.

The Group of 7, which comprises the world’s wealthiest large democracies, is about to agree to a loan to Ukraine of roughly $50 billion to rebuild the country’s devastated infrastructure, with the understanding that it will be paid back by interest earned on the frozen Russian assets, Western officials said. But even that amount, experts say, would only begin to make a dent in building a new Ukraine.

The financing announcement will be only a part of a summit this week that will range from how to reverse Russia’s new momentum to how to bring about a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. Mr. Biden and Mr. Zelensky will meet on Thursday and sign a security agreement, said Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser.

“We want to demonstrate that the U.S. supports the people of Ukraine, that we stand with them, and that will continue to help address their security needs, not just tomorrow, but out into the future,” Mr. Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to Italy.

“By signing this, we’ll also be sending Russia a signal of our resolve,” he added. “If Vladimir Putin thinks that he can outlast the coalition supporting Ukraine, he’s wrong.”

There will be moments during the summit when the leaders will try to lift their eyes beyond the current crises, including a meeting between the leaders and Pope Francis, focused on harnessing the power of artificial intelligence.

The loan deal, combined with a raft of new sanctions aimed at countering China’s effort to remake Russia’s defense industrial base, are part of the latest efforts to bolster Ukraine and hobble Russia at a perilous moment in the 27-month old conflict.

Still, Europe is bracing for the possibility that former President Donald J. Trump, who has spoken openly of pulling out of NATO, could be back in power by the time the group next meets, in 2025. And several of the leaders present — including Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain and President Emmanuel Macron of France — are facing elections that could redefine Europe.

Mr. Biden faces the hurdle of convincing his allies, starting with Mr. Zelensky, that the United States plans to stay in the fight with Ukraine, no matter what happens in November. The extensive delays this spring in getting congressional passage of the $61 billion in new ammunition and air defenses, Mr. Biden’s aides acknowledge, cost Ukraine lives, territory and tactical military advantage.

Mr. Biden told Mr. Zelensky last week, in France, that “I apologize for the weeks of not knowing what was going to pass,” and put the onus on Republicans in Congress. “Some of our very conservative members were holding it up,” he said.

But the scope of the opposition in Congress also raised the question of whether that last injection of a sizable military package could be the last, and threatens Mr. Biden’s claim as the Western leader who rallied the rest of the allies to fend off further assaults by President Vladimir V. Putin.

Now, with the war at a critical moment, the Group of 7 leaders seem poised to end months of deliberations over how to use the $300 billion in frozen Russian central bank assets, which were largely kept in European financial institutions. The idea is to provide an infusion of economic aid to Ukraine.

During a trip to Normandy last week, Mr. Biden appeared to have persuaded France, one of the last holdouts, to support the deal. At the end of the trip, President Emmanuel Macron of France told reporters that he hoped “all members of the G7 will agree to a $50 billion solidarity fund for Ukraine.”

The Biden administration, after considerable internal arguments, had been pushing to outright seize the assets. But that idea fell flat in Europe, where most of the funds are held, out of concern that it would be a violation of international law.

The European Union did agree to use the interest that the central bank assets have been earning where most of them are held — in Belgium’s central securities depository, Euroclear — to provide Ukraine with about 3 billion euros annually.

But the Biden administration wanted to provide Ukraine with more funds upfront, so it devised a plan to use that interest to back a loan that the United States and other Group of 7 countries could deliver immediately.

The loan could be as large as $50 billion and would be repaid over time with the so-called windfall profits being generated from Russia’s money.

In recent weeks, finance ministers from the Group of 7 have been trying to hash out the complicated details of how such a loan would work, with several outstanding questions still to be answered. Officials have been trying to determine how the money would actually be transmitted to Ukraine, and have discussed running it through an institution such as the World Bank as an intermediary.

It is unclear how the loan would be repaid if the war ended before the bond matured or if interest rates fell, making the proceeds on the assets insufficient to repay the loan.

John E. Herbst, senior director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council, and a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, said that unlocking the assets was of principal importance for the Group of 7, especially after the stalemate in Congress and the United States’ delays in providing Ukraine with certain weapons.

“The administration has been quick to get aid to Ukraine once Congress moved, and that’s to its credit,” he said. “But we still are slow in getting Ukraine what it needs in terms of the right weapon system, especially right now. This is not just an American failure; it’s a failure of the entire alliance.”

The unlocking of frozen assets would be “a game changer,” said Evelyn Farkas, the executive director of the McCain Institute at Arizona State University, who previously served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia under President Barack Obama.

Ms. Farkas said that the U.S. delays likely “focused the European mind,” in making European countries think: “OK, we have to come up with alternatives because the U.S. is not reliable.”

“Hopefully,” she said, “they stay focused.”

Alan Rappeport contributed reporting.