The capital of Belgium and of Europe — gilded guild houses, an irreverent sense of humour, and the continent's finest chocolate, beer and fries.
Brussels began around the year 979 as a fortress on an island in the marshy river Senne, then grew rich as a trading town between the cloth cities of Flanders and the Rhine. It became a seat of the dukes of Burgundy and, later, capital of newly independent Belgium in 1830. In 1695 a French army shelled the city and flattened its great market square; the trade guilds rebuilt it in gilded Baroque within five years. Today that square, the Grand-Place, anchors a bilingual capital that also governs the European Union.
In August 1695 the army of the French king Louis XIV, unable to capture the city, simply set out to destroy it. For two days cannon and mortars rained on the centre, burning roughly four thousand houses and reducing the medieval Grand-Place to rubble — only the stone tower of the town hall still stood. Rather than flee, Brussels' trade guilds — the bakers, brewers, boatmen and archers — rebuilt their headquarters on the very same square, each grander than the last, in a burst of gilded Baroque. The competing facades you photograph today, crowded with gold statues and swirling gables, all rose within about five years of the ashes.
A few streets away stands the city's cheekiest emblem, the Manneken Pis, a 55-centimetre bronze boy calmly peeing into a fountain since 1619. Brussels adores him: he owns a wardrobe of more than a thousand costumes and is dressed for holidays and causes throughout the year. The city's sense of theatre turned serious in 1830. At the grand opera house, La Monnaie, a patriotic aria so stirred the audience that they poured into the streets, and the riot became the revolution that won Belgium its independence — a country conjured, in part, from a night at the opera.
Brussels rewards the curious wanderer. In the 1890s the architect Victor Horta bent iron and glass into flowing, plant-like lines and invented, here, the style called Art Nouveau; several of his light-filled townhouses are now protected treasures. The Belgians also made this a capital of comics — Tintin and the Smurfs were born here, and their heroes climb painted walls across the centre — and of small pleasures: crisp double-fried frites, waffles, and the praline chocolate perfected in a Brussels shop. On the northern edge glitters the Atomium, a cluster of nine steel spheres 102 metres tall, built for the 1958 World's Fair as an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times. Around the eastern quarter, meanwhile, the glass towers of the European Union quietly run a continent.
The making of Brussels
The Grand-Place
The gilded guild houses of Brussels' market square — rebuilt in Baroque splendour within five years of a 1695 bombardment, now a UNESCO site.
The Atomium
Nine gleaming steel spheres, 102 metres tall — an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times, built for the 1958 World's Fair.
Manneken Pis
The tiny bronze boy peeing into a fountain since 1619 — Brussels' cheeky mascot, with a wardrobe of over a thousand costumes.
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Victor Horta
The architect who bent iron and glass into flowing, plant-like lines and invented Art Nouveau here in the 1890s.
The Ommegang
Each summer a costumed pageant fills the Grand-Place, re-enacting the 1549 welcome of Emperor Charles V — a UNESCO-listed tradition.
Frites, chocolate & beer
Three Belgian pleasures born or perfected here — double-fried frites, praline chocolate, and lambic beers brewed in the Senne valley.
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