Grand Place ("big square") is the chocolate baited tourist trap of central Brussels. Around it are loads of merchant guilds - you can tell the quality of the guid, by the quality of their building. I spent some time looking for an Assasin's guild, but couldn't find one. There is a town house on one side of the square with a cool tower, and a Royal Residence on the other.

    The museums here are small and irrelevant, designed to part dumb (american) tourists from their money. The contrast in quality between the Military museum & Autoworld is staggering. The 20 minute walk (or metro) to these latter museums is really worth it. I went to a chocolate museum and one with some Brussels history. In fact, I would have been mildly cheesed off having paid to get in if I had been able to understand exactly how much it had cost.

    Having said all that, the Grand Place is dead picturesque and quite cool, architecturally, on the outside.
 

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Email me at:cip1000@sobi.org