What should I avoid in Brussels?

Petite Rue des Bouchers is two minutes from Grand-Place, and nearly every first-timer ends up there. Skip it. Waiters stand outside with menus in six languages and offer a free kir or a mussels-and-frites deal for around €25, but the catch usually shows up on the bill: the €7 beer and the bread you never asked for. The mussels on Petite Rue des Bouchers are rarely awful, but they arrive tired and lukewarm under heated awnings that smell of old fryer oil. Walk ten minutes northwest to Place Sainte-Catherine instead, where Noordzee/Mer du Nord sells grilled scampi and a glass of white wine at standing tables and you can hear the plancha sizzle from across the square. For a sit-down pot of mussels, Brussels families still book Le Pré Salé on Rue de Flandre.

Manneken Pis is Jérôme Duquesnoy the Elder's fountain from 1619, standing about 55 cm tall, and the bronze on the corner of Rue de l'Étuve is a 1965 replica. The original is inside the Brussels City Museum on Grand-Place. Look at the statue as you pass between Grand-Place and the Sablon, and don't make a separate trip for it. The bigger trap is the row of waffle shops on Rue de l'Étuve, where '€1 waffle' signs turn into €7 or €8 once strawberries, Nutella and squirty cream go on, and locals don't eat waffles that way. A warm Liège waffle with crunchy pearl sugar tastes better plain. Maison Dandoy on Rue au Beurre has been baking since 1829 and makes both the Liège and Brussels styles properly. For chocolate, skip the unbranded boxes on Grand-Place and climb 15 minutes to Place du Grand Sablon, where Pierre Marcolini and Wittamer face each other across the square.

The worst first-day mistake happens before you land. Ryanair sells fares into 'Brussels South Charleroi', but that airport sits roughly 46 km south of the city, and the coach to Bruxelles-Midi takes about an hour and costs close to €20 each way. Fly into Brussels Airport at Zaventem instead: the train reaches Bruxelles-Central in under 20 minutes for roughly €11, including the Diabolo airport surcharge. A metered taxi from Zaventem's rank often costs €45 to €55, so save that option for when you have heavy bags. Bruxelles-Midi also calls for care: bags get snatched near the Avenue Fonsny exits and on the platforms, and the streets around Bruxelles-Nord feel grim after 10pm. TTDI rates Brussels 6.2/10 for solo-traveler safety (see the TTDI Solo-Safety Index), a middling score pulled down mostly by those two station districts. Keep your phone out of your back pocket on metro lines 2 and 6.

Don't build your first day around the Royal Palace of Brussels: it opens to visitors from late July to early September, so in October all you'll see is the facade on Place des Palais. The Royal Museums of Fine Arts close on Mondays, which catches anyone who lands on a Sunday night planning to see the Magritte collection. The Atomium was built for Expo 58 and looks better from outside than from inside: the queue for the lift up its central tube can run 45 minutes, and the reward is a view over the Heysel car parks and Mini-Europe, which you can also skip. At 7am today Brussels was 9.5°C in light drizzle, with 87% humidity and a feels-like of 5.4°C. In weather like that, the worn cobbles on Mont des Arts and Rue de la Montagne get as slick as soap, so pack shoes with rubber soles that grip.