Brussels for luxury travelers
Here's Brussels through the lens of luxury travelers: the canonical questions worth asking before you book a flight, the curated lists worth opening when you want a shortcut to local expertise, and the live right-now data below ready to inform your next decision about when, where, and how to spend your time on the ground.
Brussels for luxury travelers, in numbers
- Picks on this page
- 4 places across 1 lists, led by Juliana Hotel Brussels, Rocco Forte Hotel Amigo, Corinthia Brussels
- luxury-tier hotels
- 4 in the Trip.com poolfrom US$202 a night
Questions luxury travelers ask about Brussels
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Where to stay
Stay near Grand-Place or Sainte-Catherine for a first trip. Grand-Place puts you within a 5-minute walk of the city's major sights and the Bourse metro station. Budget €90-150 per night for a mid-range hotel. Sainte-Catherine, two blocks northwest, runs €10-20 cheaper and sits beside Brussels' best restaurant strip along Rue de Flandre.
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Must-see
Grand-Place, the cobblestone square at the center of Brussels' pentagon. The guild halls that line it were rebuilt after Louis XIV's 1695 bombardment and are covered in competitive gold leaf that catches afternoon sun around 4pm. Free, open 24 hours, best before 9am. The Atomium and Royal Museums of Fine Arts rank second and third.
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Food culture
Brussels eats on beer, butter, and twice-fried beef-tallow frites. Moules-frites from September through February, carbonnade flamande braised in dark ale, and grey-shrimp croquettes appear on every brasserie menu. The real food map runs by commune. Sainte-Catherine does seafood, the Marolles serves €12 stoemp with sausage, and Matongé around Porte de Namur brings Congolese cooking to a traditionally Burgundian city.
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Cultural etiquette
Brussels is officially bilingual in French and Dutch, and the language question is politically loaded. Default to 'Bonjour' as your greeting. Tipping is unnecessary since service charges are included by law. One cheek kiss for acquaintances, not two or three. Cover your shoulders inside the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula, and never call Belgian frites 'French fries.'
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Airport to city
Take the SNCB train from Brussels Airport (BRU) to Bruxelles-Central. It costs €14.70 including the Diabolo surcharge, takes 17 minutes, and runs every 10 to 15 minutes from roughly 5am to midnight. After midnight, the regulated taxi fare is €45 flat to anywhere in the Brussels-Capital Region's 19 communes.
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