What's a good 3-day itinerary for Brussels?

The Lower Town is compact. Grand-Place hits differently at 8:30 AM when the guild houses catch low eastern light and the only sound is pigeons on wet cobblestones. The square measures 68 by 110 metres, so you'll see the whole thing in twenty minutes, but the gold leaf on the Maison du Roi facade tends to hold people longer than they expect. From there, Manneken Pis is a 4-minute walk south on Rue de l'Étuve. The original bronze dates to 1619 and stands smaller than most tourists expect. Walk north instead to the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, a covered shopping arcade from 1847 where the smell of melted chocolate from Neuhaus and Mary drifts across the glass-roofed passage. Lunch at Fin de Siècle on Rue des Chartreux runs about €16 for stoofvlees, the Flemish beef stew braised in brown ale that sticks to your ribs.

Day 2 climbs. The Mont des Arts staircase from the Lower Town to the Upper Town gains about 30 metres of elevation, and you'll feel it in your calves by the top step. Start early in the Marolles instead. The flea market at Place du Jeu de Balle runs daily from 6 AM, and the good brass Art Nouveau hardware and vintage Tintin first editions disappear by 10. Work your way uphill to Place du Grand Sablon where Pierre Marcolini and Wittamer face each other across the square. The chocolate here is better than anything in the Grand-Place tourist shops, and a 6-piece box of Marcolini pralines costs about €14. The Royal Museums of Fine Arts opened in 1801 and hold Bruegel's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus on floor -2. The Magritte wing shares the same €15 ticket and takes about 90 minutes if you don't linger.

Metro line 6 from Bourse to Heysel takes 22 minutes and drops you at the Atomium's base. Built for Expo 58 in 1958, the structure stands 102 metres tall and still looks like it arrived from a different decade. The top sphere's panorama costs €16, and the escalator tubes connecting each sphere smell faintly metallic. That seems right for a building shaped like an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times. Skip Mini-Europe next door unless you're with children under 10. Take the metro back to Schuman for the afternoon. Parc du Cinquantenaire's triumphal arch sits at the eastern end of a 30-hectare park where EU staffers eat lunch on the grass. Maison Antoine at Place Jourdan, a 7-minute walk south of the park, has served double-fried frites since 1948. The large cone costs €4.50. Get the andalouse sauce.

Brussels is a 10-minute-metro city. Lines 1, 2, 5, and 6 cover every cluster in this itinerary, and a 48-hour STIB pass costs €14. The walking days average about 8 kilometres each, mostly flat except the Upper Town climb on Day 2. Beer at a bar runs €4 to €7 for a 33cl glass. Dinner for two with drinks rarely exceeds €80 outside the Sablon. The city is bilingual French-Dutch, but restaurant staff almost universally speak English. Tipping is not expected. Rounding up by a euro or two is normal.