6 Best Sights in Brussels, Belgium

The Belgium Royal Family lives in the Château de Laeken these days, and it's become a tradition to open up their inner-city residence to visitors during summer. The building was erected on the site of the former Palace of the Dukes of Brabant (aka Coudenburg), which burned down in 1731—you can still tour its underground excavation next door. Work on the existing palace was begun in 1820 but redesigned in a more garish neoclassical style in the early 19th century by Leopold II. Today, it holds a remarkable collection of tapestries, art, and antiques from all over the world. 

About 8 km (5 miles) south of Beersel, you'll encounter the wilderness area of Hallerbos. It's known locally as "the blue forest" for good reason: come mid-April and early May, the ground underneath becomes a dazzling carpet of blue-violet flowers, as bluebells cover every inch. It's a small window of opportunity, though it's a pleasant spot to wander at any time of year. To get there, take the train from Beersel to Halle, then either hire a bike at the station (www.blue-bike.be) and cycle or take the No. 155 bus.  

Set within Parc Léopold, this modern museum tackles the political upheavals that shaped Europe. It's essentially a conscience in museum form, lest anyone forget the mistakes of the past, with permanent exhibitions charting the rise of industrialization, the authoritarianism and wars of the early 1900s that saw Europe's crumbling empires and global ambitions stretched to breaking point, and how a fragmented continent slowly drew itself back together. 

The irony of a museum about the means of payment being free to visit is lost on no one. It also doesn't stop this being one of the surprise joys of the Brussels museum scene. Exhibits unravel different concepts of money throughout history, from Mesopotamian clay tablets to why you need a moko drum to buy a house on the Indonesian island of Alor. 

One of the prettiest stretches of parkland in Brussels made all the more welcome for being deep among the residential mélange of Schaerbeek. Its archways of cherry blossoms are particularly enchanting in spring. In summer there are free concerts and Glacier Cocozza, across the road, draws a queue all the way down the road for its ice creams. The park is best known for its Cherry Festival (last Sunday in June) when locals gather to compete in a highly competitive cherry-pit-spitting contest.