Is Brussels "grim" as a city break destination?

[Czerwonitz]

Or fun to see?

I really enjoyed it - definitely has more sketchy parts, but on the whole it's lovely.

Near station = Grim.
Further away is fine
But I wouldnt rush back...

Get the train to ghent or Bruges or anywhere else

I thought it was lovely. The Grand Place and all the little streets around it are nice. The atomium was fun. Of course there are grim bits - its a proper working city, not a theme park.

Why would it be?

We went a few years ago. The city centre is great but all cities have some more ropey parts.

It’s not that grim although it has its areas. But nor is it very exciting

It depends what you’re interested in. I went first the art, which was great.

The Grand-Place and surrounding area is lovely, but a lot of the rest of the city is quite unremarkable TBH. Bruges is touristy but utterly stunning. Ghent is still pretty and interesting but a bit cooler and edgier

I can’t figure out which way to vote. I like Brussels and have been a few times. There are some great museums and I like the Atomium. Lots of different architecture from the Grand Place and Art Nouveau to some ugly modern stuff. It’s quirky. I have a fondness for Belgium having lived there for a couple of years as a child.

Brussels is a bit mad and chaotic in places and its public transit system in crazy.

However it is an interesting city break destination - good art galleries and museums, great historic buildings, loads of good restaurants and bars. The good thing is it is also a great hub to get to other places - easy train rides to places like Cologne, Rotterdam, Bruges, Antwerp, Leuven etc...

No, Brussels is great for a weekend trip! There’s the stunning Grand Place, great for wander and people watching at one of the bars or cafés, some brilliant museums and art galleries, the old town for shopping and mooching, lots of great places to eat and drink - Belgian beer and chocolate…if you’re staying a bit longer you can pop to Bruges which is gorgeous.

Anywhere worth visiting will have dodgy areas, pretty areas and interesting areas.

and that's why they're worth visiting. ☺️

We went for the guided tour of the Euro Parliament, which was interesting. That was pre-Brexit (but post Brexit referendum), so we got in for free. I don't know if you pay if you're outside the EU.

I wouldn't say it's grim, but it's not somewhere I'd want to spend more than a day looking around. I found it quite dull compared to other capital cities, but not unpleasant. But as others have said, you can get to interesting places from it easily.

I've lived there for 20 years and don't think it's grim at all, though the part round Gare Du Midi isn't very nice. There are some fabulous museums and art deco buildings to visit. Grand Place and the galeries of course. Sablon and its chocolate shops. Cafe terraces at Flagey and Ste Catherine. Some nice vintage shops near the latter. Roof top cafe at the Musical Instruments museum (don't need to visit the museum) Nice cocktail bars and restaurants. Get the 44 tram out through the forest to Tervuren and the African Museum. Public transport is good and reasonably cheap. Ghent and Antwerp are 30 mins by train if you fancy a change of scenery.

I went with my 5 year old. It was fab. Round city centre has some amazing parks, skateboard parks churches and urban neighbourhoods. Lots of pretty areas in the suburbs. We spent five days including one day in Bruge.

We went last year - family of 5 , 3 children - 5, 3, 3 . We travelled on the Eurostar and had such a blast . Our children still talk about it.

we stayed in the Jam hotel which was great and for all of us in one space . Took the big open top buses as was easier for the children and went to all the sights in 3 days.

did not feel unsafe atall. Saying that, we were back at the hotel at 8pm most nights .

definitely recommend it .

I brought the DCs and DH along with me for a work trip to Brussels a couple of years ago with zero expectations - we actually intended to leave Brussels after my meetings were done and go to Bruges but the kids were having such a brilliant time that we ended up staying in town the whole weekend. It had the perfect combination of food my kids loved (chips with a zillion toppings, chocolate, waffles, mussels with more chips), fun museums, cartoon murals everywhere, and public transport being cheap and easy to navigate.

Their favourite places were the musical instrument museum, the magritte museum, the cartoon museum, spotting smurfs everywhere, and following the cartoon mural trail.

When there are so many wonderful and amazing city break options in Europe is there a reason you're considering Brussels?

we went a few years ago when we got ridiculously cheap Eurostar tickets. We nearly cancelled because it was mid February, cold, and we thought Brussels looked very boring, but we were really glad we went and had a lovely time. We found plenty to do, stayed in a delightful little boutique hotel, and found some really nice places to eat. The only disappointment was the famous statue of the boy peeing - it was so much smaller and insignificant than I had expected thst we walked past it twice 😆

We enjoyed it. There’s a tour of the EU Parliament in English once a week by someone who works there, that was great, I can’t remember if it’s free but if not it was cheap. There’s also the Parliamentarium interactive centre for the history. The House of Europe less good (can you tell we took a teenager mad about politics).
We also went to the Natural History Museum, the comic strip museum and the Magritte. Lots we didn’t get to that others have mentioned.

Walking a lot we found we kept going in and out of pretty, historic areas and contemporary working areas, but that’s what you get in any big city.

Food was great, both traditional and international from Belgian colonial history meaning there’s some great African places.

Very easy travel on the Eurostar and the Brussels metro. We stayed in a gorgeous little town house with garden, which I would highly recommend (on Booking.com).

worst European city I’ve visited

I get the impression it is one of those cities that's great to live in but not really weekend break material. I have several friends who lived there and really loved it. But for the weekend, Bruges is an obvious choice. It's gorgeous. (But probably far duller to live in.)

I've had several long weekends in Brussels and love it. It is also very easy to get to other places if you want to extend the trip. Fantastic architecture (I did a self guided art nouveau trail), lots of food options, interesting museums and nice parks. I'm looking forward to taking my 7yo there later this year.

Museums and the grand place are interesting, as noted don’t stay near the main Zuid station.

Antwerp or Ghent better in my opinion