A Weekend Guide to Brussels

Phoebe
Nov 6, 2022
2 min read

My first trip was to Brussels with 4 of my best friends and it was the perfect city for a weekend trip.

Logistics:

When booking your flight I’d recommend landing at the Brussels South Charleroi Airport, which is about an hour outside the city by bus. This will likely be significantly cheaper than landing at Brussels Airport.

Finding accommodation was pretty easy, but we opted to book out a hostel room since we were a group of 5. We used the Meininger Brussels City Center and it was the best hostel experience we had ever had.

Activities:

1. Walk around the old town

On our first day, we took advantage of how easy it is to get around by foot by essentially guiding ourselves on a walking tour of Brussels. A couple of places to see include Grand- Place, Mannekin Pis (the boy, girl and dog versions) and Place de la Bourse whilst making sure to stop for fries, waffles and chocolates on your way around. It definitely helps to have a type-A person on your trip who will make sure you hit all the spots most efficiently.

2. Beer-tasting

This is a pretty affordable and fun way to try local flavours and fill a couple of hours before dinner or treat it as a pre - we did three in one afternoon. These are offered a lot at sit-down bars or breweries. Tip: If you really don’t like the taste of beer, the fruity red ones kind of resemble sangria.

3. Day trip to Bruges

This was by far a highlight of the trip. It is a beautiful UNESCO World Heritage city and none of us had seen something quite like it before. Bruges is around an hour and 10euro train ticket away from Brussels, making it really easy to get to. We spent the day walking in and out of the sites, taking a boat trip on the canal (highly recommend this especially at sunset time) and grabbing a nice dinner.

4. Brunch, restaurants and bar spots to try

We definitely ate well this trip and decided Brussels had some of the best breakfast game in Europe. Some of our favourite spots were Kaffabar (shoutout Mason the cafe dog) and Cafe Tiera for breakfast and coffee, La Terrasse for mussels at dinner and following the people on exchange in Brussels to lead the way for bars - definitely reach out to whoever is on exchange in the cities you are visiting!

5. Thrift shopping

Before catching my flight on the last day I decided to do some second-hand shopping. City Store Vintage was our favourite and I was very pleasantly surprised by the low prices and super unique finds. Make sure to bring cash to try and sweet-talk the associate into giving you a discount.